Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper

Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Read the scenario below. Respond to the questions in full sentences. Be sure to use standard English grammar and spelling Why is information on health literacy essential for this group? What is the initial step you would take before designing the program? What role/function would you play in the beginning of the assessment phase? What role/function would you play at the end of the program? What additional resources would be needed to implement this program?Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Scenario: As a Community Health Nurse, you are assigned to develop a health literacy program at the Yvonne Learning Center to promote health literacy in a low-income urban area. This program will focus on children ages 3-7 years old, 9-12 years old and 14 to 18 years old . You will provide basic health information and services about health and teach the children about their bodies and how having a positive attitude and good behaviors influence their health in general. Permalink: https://nursingpaperessays.com/ developing-a-hea…area-essay-paper / The goal of information literacy is to promote self-learning and the ability to be self-sufficient. Developing a Health Literacy Program for Children in a Low Income Urban Area 1. Read the scenario below. 2. Respond to the questions in full sentences. Be sure to use standard English grammar and spelling. Please use APA format and include both a title page and a reference page with at least 3 references. • a. Why is information on health literacy essential for this group? b. What is the initial step you would take before designing the program? c. What role/function would you play in the beginning of the assessment phase? d. What role/function would you play at the end of the program? e. What additional resources would be needed to implement this program? Scenario: As a Community Health Nurse, you are assigned to develop a health literacy program at the Yvonne Learning Center to promote health literacy in a low-income urban area. This program will focus on children ages 3-7 years old, 9-12 years old and 14 to 18 years old . You will provide basic health information and services about health and teach the children about their bodies and how having a positive attitude and good behaviors influence their health in general. The goal of information literacy is to promote self-learning and the ability to be self-sufficient.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Although the connection between early life experiences and later health is becoming increasingly clear, what is needed, now, is a new organizing framework for childhood health promotion, grounded in the latest science. We review the evidence base to identify the steps in the overall pathway to ensuring better health for all children. A key factor in optimizing health in early childhood is building capacities of parents and communities. Although often overlooked, capacities are integral to building the foundations of lifelong health in early childhood. We outline a framework for policymakers and practitioners to guide future decision-making and investments in early childhood health promotion. There is a growing recognition that health in the earliest years lays the groundwork for lifelong well-being. This life-course view is particularly valuable for understanding the roots of health disparities and the potential role of early childhood policies and programs in producing benefits well into the adult years.1–5 Focusing health promotion and disease prevention efforts on children in the first 5 years of life can provide important strategies for reducing the population-level burden of disease. Several recent reports thoughtfully consider the factors that place young children at risk for poor outcomes and list recommendations for effective interventions.1,6 What is now needed, to advance the field of early childhood health promotion, is an underlying, organizing framework to illustrate the intermediate steps linking policies and programs to outcomes. Such a conceptualization will allow stakeholders to develop, apply, and sustain policies and programs that promote public health goals across early childhood settings.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper The framework presented here, introduced by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child in collaboration with the Women’s and Children’s Health Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, illustrates the key pathway that policymakers and practitioners can follow to promote children’s health in the preschool years.5 This framework advances previous efforts to link policies to intended health outcomes by embedding the capacities of parents and communities within the pathway; these capacities are integral to ensuring optimal environments and experiences for young children. Our objectives are to (1) describe a framework linking early childhood policies and programs to subsequent health outcomes, (2) outline key action steps within the framework and the underlying scientific evidence, and (3) demonstrate how the framework can be applied to evaluate current policies and programs and spur innovative, evidence-based strategies to improve children’s health.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Family capacities are resources that parents and other caregivers bring to the tasks of raising young children. They can be grouped into 4 general categories9: financial resources (economic ability to purchase material goods or services), time spent with or for children, psychological resources (physical and mental health and parenting style), and human capital (knowledge and skills for decision-making acquired through education or training, experience, or interactions with medical providers or others outside the immediate family). Financial resources. More than 22% of children younger than 6 years in the United States live in poor families. This constitutes more than 5 million infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.10 Numerous studies have documented the link between childhood poverty and poor health and developmental outcomes in early life and subsequent adult attainment.11 The association, in large part, is associated with the availability of fewer resources for families living at or below poverty compared with those with higher incomes. Fewer financial resources may limit caregivers’ ability to purchase goods such as health care, housing, child care, and food Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Time investments. Most young children today are raised by working caregivers with serious time constraints. Despite the rise in maternal workforce participation, recent studies have observed an increase in the number of hours parents spend with their children.13,14 This uptick may be a result of families finding ways to maximize their time and decrease “work and family conflict,” by shifting occupations, altering places of work, and increasing fathers’ involvement.13,15 However, less-educated parents in low-wage jobs have not realized similar gains in time investments with their children. Well-educated parents allocate a higher number of hours to caring for children compared with less-educated parents. Less-educated working parents often do not have the same level of flexibility or resources to meet the challenges because of the demand of low-income jobs,16 which disproportionately require shift work or nonstandard hours.17 In addition, lack of paid leave may limit breastfeeding duration18 and time spent forming critical maternal–infant attachments Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Psychological resources. Psychological resources of family and caregivers are critical to children’s health and development. These resources include parental mental health and more broadly the skills and abilities caregivers possess to address parenting demands. Prevalence estimates of maternal depressive symptoms in the postpartum period range from 8% to 15%20 and approximately 32% in mothers of toddlers.21 The quality of parent–child interaction is an important mediator of the relation between depression and adverse child outcomes ranging from less favorable patterns of health care utilization to increased negative affect and aggression.2,22 Maternal depression is associated with more hostile and less responsive parenting behaviors. Less is known about this relation among fathers; however, studies of paternal depression also show negative effects on parenting and the parent–child relationship.23,24 In addition, sources of stress such as marital discord independently affect parenting practices and increase rates of children’s neglect and maltreatment Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Human capital. Human capital includes the skills that serve as an advantage related to employment opportunities for parents or increased knowledge about child rearing. Educational attainment is perhaps the most commonly recognized form of human capital. Approximately one fourth of children at 9 months of age have mothers who have not graduated high school, with rates varying by race/ethnicity.25 Multiple theoretical models describe the relation between parental education and child outcomes.26Educated parents are more likely to earn higher incomes, which in turn may allow for an increased financial investment with regard to providing enhanced resources and experiences for their children. Alternatively, higher educational attainment may be a proxy for quality of parent–child interactions or greater emphasis on learning and other behaviors that are rewarded in school. Health literacy of parent or caregiver is another important form of human capital. Health literacy is the capacity to obtain, process, and understand health information needed to make basic health-related decisions.27 Approximately 30% of US parents have limited health literacy skills.28 Caregivers’ health literacy influences children’s access to and use of health care services as well as the development of children’s own health literacy.29 Low parental literacy is associated with low levels of other preventive health behaviors such as breastfeeding and identification of appropriate food portion sizes for children, even after adjustment for demographic factors such as race/ethnicity and language Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Community Capacities Families and caregivers most directly influence young children, but there is extensive evidence highlighting the important role of communities.2,31 Community capacity can be described as the underlying processes within the neighborhood to affect health and well-being. Specifically, community capacity may affect early childhood health in 2 main ways—institutional resources and collective efficacy.32 Institutional resources. Institutional resources include parks, fresh food markets, and early education centers. These institutions play important roles in promoting the health and development of young children, yet there is varied level of investment across communities. Physical features such as the proximity of parks and green space increase physical activity for children and provide opportunities for children and parents to interact and enhance social ties.33,34 Proximity of parks alone does not guarantee use; other factors such as parental perceptions of safety and playground characteristics must also be considered in concert with increasing access to “built” environments.35,36Neighborhoods with access to retailers with fresh food options have healthier diets compared with neighborhoods with greater availability of processed food Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper In addition, one half to two thirds of early education centers fail to meet the minimum safety requirements.38 Children who attend poor-quality child care facilities receive less supervision and individualized attention; they are also at increased risk for injuries because of unsafe conditions including hazardous playground equipment, missing safety gates, and unsafe cribs.39,40 Collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is the ability of communities to establish informal social structures and a broader sense of mutual trust and shared values.32,41,42Collective efficacy emphasizes not only the role of social connections within communities but also the function of social control mechanisms. These mechanisms include monitoring the behavior of others and supervising children.41,43 Although parenting behavior has been hypothesized to be a primary mechanism by which collective efficacy may have an impact on child outcomes, little empirical research has examined this in the context of families with young children Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Linking the Foundations of Health to Health Outcomes The foundations of health refer to broad domains of personal experiences and environmental conditions in early childhood; these serve as important building blocks for later adult health. Basic biological processes and structures are shaped by early experiences. The interactions among experiences, environments, and biology are powerful influences on childhood health and exert their effects into adolescence and later adulthood. “Getting it right” in early childhood by ensuring children’s foundational needs are met can avoid costly and less effective solutions that are needed to “fix” later health problems. Thus, in describing the foundations of health, we focus on “positive” experiences and environments that are needed to optimize children’s health and development. However, investments in reduction of significant adversity, including neglect and maltreatment, are equally important as they undermine the foundations of health.1 The science across multiple fields including public health, medicine, psychology, and sociology points to 4 core foundations of children’s health: responsive caregiving, safe and secure environments, adequate and appropriate nutrition, and health-promoting behaviors. Focusing on these areas does not negate the importance of other influences, but does highlight 4 key contexts that are highly interconnected, are important for all children, and can be strengthened through early childhood policies and programs.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Rapid improvements in health and nutrition in developing countries may be ascribed to specific, deliberate, health- and nutrition-related interventions and to changes in the underlying social, economic, and health environments. This chapter is concerned with the contribution of specific interventions, while recognizing that improved living standards in the long run provide the essential basis for improved health. Consideration of the environment as the context for interventions is crucial in determining their initiation and in modifying their effect, and it must be taken into account when assessing this effect. Undoubtedly much change has stemmed from scientific advances, immunization being a prominent case. However, the organizational aspects of health and nutrition protection are equally critical. In the past several decades, people’s contact with trained workers has been instrumental in improving health in developing countries. This factor applies particularly to poor people in poor countries but is relevant everywhere; indeed, it is a reason that social services have essentially eliminated almost all occurrences of child malnutrition in Europe (where, when malnourished children are seen, it is caused by neglect).Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Community-based programs under many circumstances provide this crucial contact. Their role is partly in improving access to technology and resources, but it is also important in fostering behavior change and, more generally, in supporting caring practices (Engle, Bentley, and Pelto 2000; UNICEF 1990). Such programs may also play a part in mobilizing social demand for services and in generating pressure for policy change. Access to healthcare services is critical to good health, yet rural residents face a variety of access barriers. A 1993 National Academies report, Access to Healthcare in America , defined access as the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes . A 2014 RUPRI Health Panel report on rural healthcare access summarizes additional definitions of accesswith examples of measures that can be used to determine access. Ideally, residents should be able to conveniently and confidently access services such as primary care, dental care, behavioral health, emergency care, and public health services. According to Healthy People 2020, access to healthcare is important for:Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Overall physical, social, and mental health status Disease prevention Detection, diagnosis, and treatment of illness Quality of life Preventable death Life expectancy Rural residents often encounter barriers to healthcare that limit their ability to obtain the care they need. In order for rural residents to have sufficient access, necessary and appropriate healthcare services must be available and obtainable in a timely manner. Even when an adequate supply of healthcare services exists in the community, there are other factors to consider in terms of healthcare access. For instance, to have good healthcare access, a rural resident must also have:Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Financial means to pay for services, such as health or dental insurance that is accepted by the provider Means to reach and use services, such as transportation to services that may be located at a distance, and the ability to take paid time off of work to use such services Confidence in their ability to communicate with healthcare providers, particularly if the patient is not fluent in English or has poor health literacy Trust that they can use services without compromising privacy Belief that they will receive quality care This guide provides an overview of healthcare access in rural America including discussion on the importance and benefits of healthcare access and the barriers that rural residents experience. The guide includes information on: Barriers to care, including workforce shortages and health insurance status Transportation Health literacy Stigma associated with conditions in rural communities, such as mental health or substance abuse Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Many low income first-generation college students who are reading and doing math at a seventh or eighth grade level are admitted into college. Every year, as many as 1.7 million first-year students entering both two- and four-year colleges will take a remedial course to learn the skills they need to enroll in a college-level course. African American, Hispanic, and low-income students represent the largest populations of entering college freshmen who require remedial courses. In fact, 64.7 percent of low-income students who are enrolled in a 2-year college and 31.9 percent enrolled in a 4-year college will require remediation. Academic challenges are often deep-seeded and begin in primary and secondary school, which when left unaddressed, often leads to remediation at the postsecondary level.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper In community-based programs, workers—often volunteers and part-time workers—interact with households to protect their health and nutrition and to facilitate access to treatment of sickness. Mothers and children are the primary focus, but others in the household should participate. Commonly, people go regularly to a central point in their community—for example, for growth monitoring and promotion—or are visited at home by a health and nutrition worker. The existence, training, support, and supervision of the community worker—based in the community or operating from a nearby health facility—are indispensable features of these programs. Thus community organizations are a key aspect of community-based health and nutrition programs (CHNPs). This chapter focuses on large-scale (national or state) programs. Although these programs are primarily initiated and run at the local level, links with the national level and levels in between are necessary. Both horizontal and vertical organizations are needed. Local organizations make action happen, but they need input and resources, such as training, supervision, and supplies, from more central levels.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper The experience on which this chapter is based comes from a considerable number of national and large-scale programs. Most of these programs include both nutrition and health activities, aimed particularly at the health and survival of reproductive-age women and children. We draw on these experiences as we try to put forward principles on which future programs can be based—programs that may have broader health objectives for other population groups and diseases. As of 2001, some 19 percent of global deaths were among children—and 99 percent of all child deaths took place in low- and middle-income countries. The disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost attributed to zero- to four-year-olds—plus maternal and perinatal conditions, nutrition deficiencies, and endocrine disorders—amount to 42 percent of the total disease burden (all ages, both sexes) from all causes for developing regions. CHNPs address about 40 percent of the disease burden. In terms of prevention, Mason, Musgrove, and Habicht (2003) estimated that eliminating malnutrition would remove one-third of the global disease burden. Comparative studies by Ezzati, Lopez, and others (2002) and Ezzati, Vander Hoorn, and others (2003) have reemphasized malnutrition as the predominant risk factor and improvement of nutrition as playing a potentially major role in reducing the burden. Clinical deficiencies contribute directly to malnutrition, but even more, malnutrition is a risk factor for infectious diseases (table 56.1). Furthermore, changes in child malnutrition levels in developing countries are closely related to the countries’ mortality trends (Pelletier and Frongillo 2003).Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Responsive caregiving. The care that infants experience, whether from parents, extended family members, or child care professionals, lays the groundwork for the development of a multitude of basic health processes, including self-regulation, attention, and, ultimately, social–emotional functioning.44–46 Moreover, the quality of the care children experience is predictive of a range of developmental and health outcomes.47–52 Early childhood is a time of rapid development in body systems that are critical to health, including the brain, nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. These systems are under construction even before birth, and, from the earliest moments of life, a child’s experiences and environments exert powerful influences on his or her development and subsequent functioning. Social, cultural, and economic determinants of health shape the context of early experiences and environments and are particularly salient in early childhood when the roots of lifelong health and development are being established. Poorly constructed systems have an impact on health in early life, and these effects may be magnified as children grow into adulthood. Establishing strong systems in early childhood by meeting the foundational needs of all children may avoid costly and less effective solutions required to redress disease later in life.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper The current patchwork of health-promotion policies and programs for young children and their families emerged during the growth of public health and medical care programs in the 20th century.8 As a consequence, this nonsystem does not reflect recent advances arising from molecular biology, genomics and epigenetics, neuroscience, and social science that emphasize the significance of early experiences and the importance of families and communities in promoting children’s health. Nor do they reflect the importance of considering social, economic, and cultural determinants of health in strategies to promote health and reduce disparities. A new framework grounded in the latest science is needed to conceptualize how early childhood programs should be designed to enhance children’s health and development and to inform investments in early childhood programs and policies.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Our framework illustrates (Figure 1) the pathway by which policies and programs can promote childhood health outcomes and ultimately have an impact on life-course health. Policies and programs operate to enhance family and community capacities. These capacities enable the building of the foundations of health in early childhood. The foundations of health encompass the basic needs of all children—responsive care, safe and secure environments, adequate and appropriate nutrition, and health-promoting behaviors. The foundations of health, in turn, influence basic biological mechanisms that shape health and development in early childhood and across the life span. In addition, the figure illustrates the moderating role of the 2 important contexts that are critical considerations for strategies aimed at promoting children’s health. First, social, economic, and cultural determinants of health, including the effects of poverty, education, and discrimination, directly and indirectly influence each aspect of the conceptual model. And second, the settings—or places—in which young children and their families live, work, and develop, are ideal sites for interventions. Building on the work of Bronfenbrenner and other social–ecological models, the framework illustrates the importance of considering the individual within a dynamic embedded system characterized by the interrelatedness of multiple levels of influence Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Health education is one strategy for implementing health promotion and disease prevention programs. Health education provides learning experiences on health topics. Health education strategies are tailored for their target population. Health education presents information to target populations on particular health topics, including the health benefits/threats they face, and provides tools to build capacity and support behavior change in an appropriate setting. The following definition of health promotion is from the World Health Organization’s Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion [71]: The process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health.It involves the population as a whole in the context of their everyday lives, rather than focusing on people at risk for specific diseases, and is directed toward action on the determinants or causes of health.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Universal child and family health services have the opportunity to conduct a range of evidence-based health promotion strategies that aim to encourage families to create attitudes, behaviours and environments to promote optimal health for children. There are many ways in which health promotion is delivered in a universal child and family health service and these may include: the provision of information to parents through written or audio-visual resources; a discussion between the worker and the family, or demonstration of a health- promoting behaviour; role modelling through specifically set up groups and through experiences of other parents; and community awareness activities. There are four core service elements related to health promotion: 1. prevention of disease, injury and illness; 2. health education, anticipatory guidance and parenting skill development; 3. support that builds confidence and is reassuring for mothers, fathers and carers; and 4. community capacity building.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Prevention of disease, injury and illness Prevention of disease is a core component of child and family health service provision. The combination of monitoring of child and family health whilst conducting preventative health activities provides opportunities for early intervention and detection and the prevention of ill-health. Disease-prevention activities include: immunisation, promotion of breastfeeding and nutrition, information about SIDS and co-sleeping, oral health surveillance, and safety and injury prevention, for example, road safety. Examples of effective health promotion activities for child and family health Promoting breastfeeding Promoting child and family nutrition SIDS prevention and education [72] Injury prevention [73] Promoting physical activity Smoking cessation programs such as ‘quit’ activities and ‘brief interventions’ Promoting early literacy [63, 73] Health education, anticipatory guidance and parenting skill development Health education, anticipatory guidance and parenting skill development are interrelated components of health promotion. These components may occur during individual contact with parents and carers, or in a group setting [74, 75]. The benefits of a group delivery include peer support and cost-effective use of resources.Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper The World Health Organization (1998) defines health education as ‘consciously constructed opportunities for learning, involving some form of communication designed to improve health literacy, including improving knowledge, and developing life skills which are conductive to individual and community health’. Health education is not only concerned with the communication of information, but also with fostering the motivation, skills and confidence (self-efficacy) necessary to take action to improve health. For example, health education by child and family health services includes providing structured breastfeeding support. Systematic reviews in the Cochrane Library have identified the importance of support to the success of breastfeeding [76] with both peer and professional support shown to be effective in increasing breastfeeding rates during the first two months following birth. Child and family health nurses are regularly involved in interventions providing structured breastfeeding support to mothers [77].Developing A Health Literacy Program For Children In A Low-Income Urban Area Essay Paper Universal child and family health services provide structured anticipatory guidance about a child’s development and behaviour. Anticipatory guidance gives parents practical information about ‘what to expect’ in the child’s behaviour, growth and development in the immediate and longer term. It provides parents with the knowledge they need to provide positive experiences and environments for their child and reduces the anxiety for new parents. For example, universal child and family health services are well positioned to actively influence parents and carers to undertake activities that promote literacy development [67]. Furthermore, through play, children practise and master the necessary skills needed for later childhood and adult life [78]. Parents and carers play an important role in the facilitation of play as they respond to and promote the interactions of their child. Child and family health services can promote play as the ‘work’ of infants and young children and necessary for the development of language, symbolic thinking, problem solving, s