Health Medical Homework Help

APA FORMAT, 2 REFERENCES NEEDED AND CITED

PEER #1 LAURA

There are health disparities that exist and need to be addressed in my community. One primary concern is the Hispanic/Latin American population. There is a growing population of Latin Americans in my community who don’t receive adequate health care. When compared to other ethnicities in my community, studies report that approximately 33 percent of Latin Americans are without basic health insurance, and lack understanding on how to receive public health assistance (Fitisemanu, 2015). Health indicators appear to be correlated to ethnicity, demographic information, and health care access. As such, lower socioeconomic conditions, inadequate employment, insufficient understanding of health concerns and available solutions, lack of health care access, and cultural and linguistic barriers are the primary obstacles causing health disparities (Fitisemanu, 2015). As a mental health worker, reducing ethnic-based, health disparities in my community is essential. After reviewing “Step 2” of the Strategic Prevention Framework on SAMHSA’s website, it is important to build and mobilize community members and resources to strengthen the prevention team, and increase awareness of health disparities among the Hispanic population (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2019). In order to build capacity to appropriately address improving health related outcomes in the Hispanic population, it’s important to incorporate multidisciplinary team members from a variety of ethnicities, backgrounds, and experiences. Particularly, engaging Latin American, community stakeholders and raising awareness for this specific population is essential to impacting health outcomes. As such, including neighborhood residents of predominantly, Latin American communities is essential. Likewise, incorporating multi-cultural, service providers can help direct a variety of strategies in recommended settings. Further, as a collaborative team, reducing health barriers can begin with a meaningful discourse on existing barriers, discuss how to enhance existing programs, generate ideas and strategies to facilitate future interventions, and incorporate cultural competency-based interventions (SAMHSA, 2019). There are a few program ideas that mental health workers can be involved with to help reduce health disparities. One program is to assist health care professionals by providing culturally and linguistically, appropriate resources. The online, Multilingual Library Interpretation and Translation Toolkits offers training videos, and culturally competency resources to learn from (Fitisemanu, 2015). This can help improve cultural and linguistic barriers. Likewise, providing resources for state programs to serve financially disadvantaged individuals with Medicaid, CHIP, the Primary Care Network (PCN), and sliding-scale options for medical and dental services can help community health clinics in my community (Utah Department of Health, 2021). Additionally, fostering partnerships with Health Clinics of Utah and Safety Net clinics can help those without health care insurance, and assist individuals with finding health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (Fitisemanu, 2015). Another program to help improve health outcomes in this population is through mother and baby programs. This includes promoting free, maternal and infant health programs, offering informational resources to prevent communicable diseases, and improving infant care to reduce accidental deaths. These can be offered in various, locally-frequented facilities and through multimedia platforms to reach this population. Additionally, designing more recreational facilities and parks with safe walkways can help this community with fitness and independence (Fitisemanu, 2015). These are some of the ways a mental health worker can be involved in reducing health disparities in my community.

References:

Fitisemanu, J. (2015). Health status by race & ethnicity 2015. Utah Department of Health. https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/utah-cancer-registry/docs/2015-health-status-by-race-ethnicity.pdf

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2019, June). https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/20190620-samhsa-strategic-prevention-framework-guide.pdf

Utah Department of Health. (2021). Health and human services consolidation information. https://health.utah.gov/

PEER #2 JOE

After you assessed your community in the Part 4 assignment for this topic, explain if there were health disparities or not. Explain why health disparities exist in communities. Using “Step 2” of the Strategic Prevention Framework on the SAMHSA website, how can you, as a mental health worker, work to reduce or eliminate health disparities?

After you assessed your community in the Part 4 assignment for this topic, explain if there were health disparities or not.

As a mental health provider, I must be willing to explain different things at different times. We need to know if there are any health disparities in my community or not. According to J. J. Kronenfeld (Ed.). (2013). “Health disparities are different inequalities in health care and access the health care through different things such as race, religion, ethnic, and socio economical challenges” (Kronenfeld, 2013). There helath despraites in my area. GThe desparities are mainly caused by different religous beliefs.

Explain why health disparities exist in communities.

Health disparities exist in different communities mainly because people have different beliefs. This does occur on a regular baiss. It can be changed if people can get onthe same page.

Using “Step 2” of the Strategic Prevention Framework on the SAMHSA website, how can you, as a mental health worker, work to reduce or eliminate health disparities?

We must be able to use different ways to reduce or eliminate health disparities. According to A Guide to SAMSHA’s Strategic Prevention (2021) “We must iuse use different stakeholders from different backgrounds as well as develop a prevention team, and raise community awareness will help alleviate health disparities in all sorts of communities” (A Guide to Samsha’s Strategic Plan, 2021).

Reference

A Guide to SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Frameworkhttps://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/…

Kronenfeld, J. J. (Ed.). (2013). Social determinants, health disparities and linkages to

health and health care. ProQuest Ebook Central

https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org

PEER #3 CLEA

Lewis County has tremendous health disparities when it comes to the rest of Washington State.”Lewis County is ranked among the least healthy counties in Washington.” (County Health Rankings, 2021). Unfortunately, there are disparities in every aspect from obesity, to smoking, to inactivity, etc. I would have to say the lack of education is a major factor that contributes to all aspects of the disparities. With only 88% having completed high school and only 58% having some college education; the misinformation about how to stay healthy is incredibly rampant. With a lack of education there is a lot of mistrust on how to stay healthy; there is also a tremendous fear of change. In my community change is seen as a bad thing and not “how things have always been done,” which is leading to a lot of health problems.

I mainly focused on obesity in my area; when only 54% of the community (unlike the state average of 86%) have access to exercise opportunities, coupled with misinformation about food consumption and eating healthy that leads to 33% of adults over 20 being obese.

When looking at the SAMHSA website understanding the culture of the community is going to be key in transforming the health disparities. “Capacity for prevention includes two main components: resources and readiness.” (SAMHSA, 2021). When there are adequate resources in the community and the community is ready to make changes, things will happen, but if there are not enough resources or the community doesn’t respond to those resources nothing will change. Right now we need more resources and we need the community to be educated in those resources. Like most things, there needs to be buy-in from the community, because no matter how amazing the resources are, if the community distrusts or doesn’t see the value in those resources, there will be no change.

References:

A Guide to SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Frameworkhttps://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/

County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. (2021). Lewis County, Washington. https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/washington/2021/rankings/lewis/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot