Major Community Health Issues - Essay Example

Major Community Health Issues Though child abuse has always been prevalent in all the world’s societies, it is only now more than ever starting to be recognized as a serious community health issue by the majority of all countries.Major Community Health Issues.IntroductionWhat is Child Abuse and Neglect?The United States Federal laws define child abuse and neglect as, “Any action or inaction by the caretaker or parent of a child that ends up resulting in the death, sexual exploitation and abuse, or serious physical and emotional harm of any child.

The law also categorizes it as any failure to act by the parent that causes an increase in the risk of the imminent harm of a child.”The most recent studies conducted in the United States indicate that nearly 3 million children in the United States suffered from either neglect or abuse. This figure is the equivalent of about 1 in every 25 children being affected by the vice. 77% of these were the victims of neglect while 26% of them were identified as abused (Elzouki, Stapleton, Whitley, William, Harfi, Nazer, 2012).

In the state of Ohio alone, about 20 children are reported abused and neglected every hour (Congressional Record, 1999).Because of its unique nature of listening to the end needs of the target audience before building up a marketing program, social marketing is an effective and extremely powerful tool, and it can be used in the creation of child abuse and neglect awareness in Hamilton, Ohio USA (Weinreich, 2010). The awareness campaign would be in line with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) mission of aiming to strengthen practices and policies that are aimed at helping improve the health of people (Fielding and Kumanyika, 2009).

School Nurses can also be enlisted to play a vital role in helping in identifying the cases of either neglect or abuse of children in their schools. Practice would be in tandem with the National Adolescent Health Information Center (NASN) plans to try and increase the utilization of school nurses in their plans to promote population health improvements (Embrey, 2008).References:Embrey, M. L. (2008). Navigating through the healthy people 2020 process. NASN School Nurse, 23, 6, 210-211Congressional Record, (1999) V. 145, Pt. 6, April 28, 1999 to May 10, 1999 (page 7882)Fielding, J.

, & Kumanyika, S. (2009). Recommendations for the concepts and form of Healthy People 2020. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 37, 3, 255-257Elzouki A. Y., Stapleton F. B., Whitley R. J., William Oh, Harfi H. A., Nazer H., (2012) Textbook of clinical pediatrics/ Vol. 1. Berlin ; Heidelberg [u.a.] : Springer.Weinreich N. Kline, (2010) What is Social Marketing? Retrieved on 21st May 2012 from http://www.social-marketing.com/Whatis.html