Mobilizing for Action Through Planning and Partnership in Public Health
Introduction
Current, emerging, and re-emerging health problems necessitate developing innovative strategies to address the challenges adequately. Consequently, stakeholders should design disease prevention and health promotion programs to improve the health of communities. Therefore, health interventions in the community are practical solutions that create a conducive environment that perpetuates behavioral change for health promotion. Moreover, the interventions aim to address health risks for vulnerable populations for lowering disease burden in the community. However, community health interventions’ effectiveness necessitates the utilization of a practical framework for planning and implementing community health programs. For instance, Murdaugh et al. (2019) posited that the collaborative partnership between communities and public health agencies is an effective strategy to refine communities’ health. For this reason, it is imperative to describe the application of mobilizing for action through planning and partnership (MAPP).
Educating Healthcare Organization Employees on MAPP Process
Community Health Issue
There has been increasing advocacy for the use of e-cigarettes/vaping on account of the perceived less adverse health effects than conventional smoking. Consequently, the community has experienced a high prevalence of e-cigarette use among the youth. Moreover, the public health department has identified a significant number of youth hospital admission with lung-related complications (Fadus et al., 2019). In addition, the majority of the youth present to the health facilities with complaints of nausea, abdominal pain, and vomiting consistent with nicotine sickness. Furthermore, Singh et al. (2020) established that 42.2% of the youth between 9th and 12th grade had attempted vaping. Therefore, the public health department decided to engage the community to address the increased prevalence of e-cigarette/vaping among the community’s youth.
The success of community health programs demands collaboration between the community and public health entities. Therefore, the MAPP model ensures that communities identify their health challenges, prioritize health concerns, and mobilize resources to address the identified health challenges (Issel et al., 2021). Consequently, the communities will develop the capacity to identify health vulnerabilities, enabling them to plan and implement disease prevention interventions for safe and healthy living. Therefore, stakeholders should educate healthcare organizations to utilize the six-phase MAPP model as a protocol for community health interventions. The phases include partnership development and organizing for success, creating a vision, conducting four assessments, identifying strategic issues, formulating goals, and the final action cycle.
Organizing for Success and Critical Stakeholders
The initial process involves the recruitment of participants as active collaborators in the process. The program participants include the technical committee on MAPP, the steering committee involving selected community members with public health department staff, and the general community. Moreover, the phase highlights responsibility and dedication toward controlling e-cigarette/vaping among the youth. Subsequently, the participants design a plan to execute the project with realistic goals. Therefore, participant commitment is essential for this initial phase.
Creating a Vision, Data Gathering, and Analysis
The phase is essential to ensure that community members identify and work towards the future of a safe and healthy community. Therefore, the public health MAPP experts guide the community members to design innovative ideas for the community health intervention program. Moreover, project participants will conduct assessments on community robustness, the public health system’s capacity, the community’s health position, and mechanisms that transform the community for health improvement. Consequently, the partners will analyze the information to provide a direction for refining the community’s health.
Identifying Strategic Issues, Formulating Goals, and Action Cycle
The partners identify and address community concerns in order of urgency and importance, based on the data collection and analysis results. Consequently, the healthcare organization employees and the community will design objectives and strategize to address the identified concerns. Therefore, the program participants will build an action plan to address barriers to achieving a safe and healthy community. Subsequently, the team executes the plan in a cyclic process of scheduling, implementing, and evaluating results to ensure the community is safe from health risks and mitigate the disease burden.
Project Effectiveness
The program was successful in addressing e-cigarette use among the youth. It involved the public health system, the community, and learning institutions. Consequently, the participants engaged in counter-marketing of e-cigarettes and products. Moreover, school guidance and counseling departments ensured that e-cigarette users demonstrated behavioral changes on e-cigarette use. Ultimately, a significant proportion of the youth was able to quit using e-cigarettes. Therefore, the program effectively solved the public health concern of increased vaping among the youth.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Program
The program registered success in combating the use of e-cigarettes among the youth due to the community owning the process. Moreover, the program benefited from the leadership of local community organizers. Additionally, diverse knowledge and skills from public health staff, community organizers, school heads, and behavioral experts improved the program execution outcomes. However, the program experienced the challenge of ensuring overall community inclusivity. Therefore, community-driven health interventions are effective in addressing public health problems.
Conclusion
Preventable problems continuously hinder transformations in the healthcare systems. The application of mobilizing for action through planning and partnership (MAPP) has effectively reduced community challenges and promoted health. Public health systems should ensure maximum community participation in community health programs. Moreover, community members appropriately use their resources to address health challenges such as increased e-cigarette use. Furthermore, in collaboration with the community, public health systems should sustain the capacity to identify and address health vulnerabilities for safe and healthy societies.
References
Fadus, M. C., Smith, T. T., & Squeglia, L. M. (2019). The rise of e-cigarettes, pod mod devices, and JUUL among youth: Factors influencing use, health implications, and downstream effects. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 201, 85–93. Web.
Issel, L. M., Wells, R., & Williams, M. (2021). Health program planning and evaluation: a practical systematic approach to community health (5th ed). Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Murdaugh, C. L., Parsons, M. A., & Pender, N. J. (2019). Health promotion in nursing practice. Pearson.
Singh, S., Windle, S. B., Filion, K. B., Thombs, B. D., O’Loughlin, J. L., Grad, R., & Eisenberg, M. J. (2020). E-cigarettes and youth: Patterns of use, potential harms, and recommendations. Preventive Medicine, 133, 106009. Web.