2 peer responses - due in 2 hours - 60 words

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Guided Response: Imagine you are a member of this community and have this health issue. Explain why you feel your needs are met or not met by the efforts your classmate plans to take to address it. Describe one more action that your classmate could take to better address the issue in their community.

Makiera:

I would like to address the obesity issue within my county because not only has it been ranked as last in 2017, but we as a whole suffer from poverty too! There is not enough funding or resources available in the area or surrounding areas in order to break this cycle. Per Hunter, obesity is 40 percent in Robeson County to that of national level of 20 percent and that of 30 percent compared state level. When looking at the healthy.gov, obesity was at 10.1 percent in 2017, which is still a lot less than what was recorded for Robeson County.

Being that the areas are low poverty and not given such a budget as other stated or counties, we should be funded more to provide healthy meals in schools and during after school events. If possible, creating a good but healthy eating out place that we would normally have to go on vacation to eat, but at affordable prices. Fast food joints are "fast" and convenient for a reason, let us encourage our kids and even adults (as we lead by example) to go out and do some form of physical activity. It starts with YOU, with US! As we look at the news daily, we see a lot more kids dying off than adults from heart attacks, cancer, and many more diseases.

-MM

References:

Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. (HealthyPeople.gov.)

Hunter, T. (2017, April 15). Robeson again last in North Carolina in health rankings. Retrieved from https://www.robesonian.com/news/98081/robeson-again-last-in-north-carolina-in-health-rankings (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Rashanda:

What Are You Going to Do About It? 

A significant health issue in my community as well as within the state of Pennsylvania is substance abuse of adolescents. In the year of 2005, the number of Americans that have a drug or alcohol problem reached 22 million with 95% of those individuals oblivious to their drug or alcohol problem. There has been failed attempts to seek treatment from $273,000 of those individuals. With the estimates that have been reported, the importance of increasing efforts to prevent substance abuse and improve access to treatment has been of high priority (Substance Abuse, n.d.). Health People 2020 has goals set for all states that are trying to be met to address the issue of youth to protect their health, safety, and their lives, such as decreasing the percentage of adolescents that have used substances within the last 30 days, increasing percentage of those that will never use substances and who does not approve of abuse, and increasing percentage of those that need and are receiving treatment for substance abuse (Substance Abuse, n.d.).

It will take for strong community leaders that are aware of the issue, are for the children, and have experience with working with adolescents or individuals that have faced this issue, financial support, whether from donations, fundraisers, or state grants, and support from healthcare professionals, schools, parents, and public health practitioners to step up and establish different effective prevention programs and incorporate them into the community. These programs should be established to intervene in all areas of children and adolescents lives, such as at schools, after school clubs,  and at home with their families, based on assessments done to find out the type of substance abuse problem of the specific community and state and the risk factors. School-based programs and family-based programs can be established and combined to address risk factors, such as little parental supervision, poverty, social problems, failure in school, or family problems to prevent and reduce the occurrence of this health issue. For an example, for preschoolers and elementary students a prevention program can help address aggressive behavior, poor social skills, or problems within academics, and for middle and high school students a prevention program can help to address skills, such communication, study habits, building relationships with their peers, and drug resistance skills. Family-based programs can be offered throughout the community, to teach parents better family supervision and communication skills, constant rule enforcement, and to increase their emotional and social support to their children.

As a public health practitioner, I will be a part of the development of the prevention program, working with the children and adolescents, the community leaders, and the head of the program, as well as gathering and analyzing information about the community and monitoring the effectiveness of the program to know if improvement is needed once in progress. This will allow for me to be able to effectively teach the adolescents and their parents about healthy behaviors and better ways to handle different situations in life rather than turning to drugs, encourage them to make better and healthier decisions for their future, and provide them with different material of resources that are available to them within the community and within our program; especially through the support classes that will be offered. This will also allow for me to see if this program is helping to reach the intended goals of substance abuse of adolescents.

References

Substance Abuse (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/substance-abuse

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