Introduction
Healthcare practitioners utilize interventions to promote the well-being of populations. Over the last thirty years, researchers have discovered that funding population health initiatives may save lives and decrease health disparities in many circumstances (Astell-Burt et al., 2018). Through national policy, regulatory measures, single strategy undertakings, and multi-component programs that benefit entire communities, population health interventions aid in maintaining people healthy and out of the hospital. New vaccinations, such as hepatitis B, save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. At the same time, antiretroviral medication has aided the global drop in HIV and AIDS deaths (Astell-Burt et al., 2018). The other example of public health intervention is the prevention of childhood obesity, which is discussed further. The paper overviews the identified intervention, analyzes it in terms of accessibility, and provides a recommendation for the initiative’s enhancement, as well as summarizes its implications.
Overview of Population Health Intervention
Early childhood obesity is a severe public health problem since the longer children stay overweight or obese, the greater the chance they will become morbidly obese grownups with the associated illnesses. This issue affects approximately one-quarter of all children in the United States, with comparable percentages in Europe, Canada, and Australia (Narzisi & Simons, 2020). In response to rising rates of juvenile obesity, the number of published research has steadily increased in the quest for an answer on how to avoid obesity. Since obesity rates in school-aged children are resilient, the intervention is focused on the population of preschoolers to have a more significant impact because of the possibility of reducing obesity rates early by acting in the lives of younger children.
It should be understood that individual-focused interventions such as physical activity and nutrition are unlikely to work. As a result, the population-based intervention for early childhood obesity aims to improve eating and social surroundings. These factors, as well as high rates of poverty, result in significant disparities in sustaining balanced diets and active lives. For example, dangerous and restricted recreational areas and the fast availability of low-cost, nutritious food alternatives contribute to early childhood obesity (Brown et al., 2019). Obesity inequalities may necessitate interventions that address structural determinants across sectors, such as the availability of fresh vegetables and fruits and appropriate recreational places. These interventions should be directed toward low-income children and their parents, especially in disadvantaged communities (Brown et al., 2019). As a result, policies focus on family-based interventions that increase education and collective efficacy to promote social and constructed environments that encourage healthy living.
Critique of Selected Population Health Intervention
Despite growing worldwide attention to the relationship between structural determinants and medical and nutrition disparities, most healthcare interventions have focused on behavior modification at the individual and social levels. Most of the studied childhood obesity prevention initiatives have limited impact on long-term health improvements or reductions in health inequities (Narzisi & Simons, 2020). For example, the home-based intervention included treatments aimed at encouraging good eating practices and parental abilities and resulted in varying degrees of effectiveness. Furthermore, the intervention in the preschool and early childhood environment aimed to promote knowledge and awareness of health behaviors through a low health literacy training course for obesity prevention (Narzisi & Simons, 2020). However, the parental access limitations were not solved, and the dropout from the program increased.
The most extensive research was a community-wide intervention aimed at children aged newborn to five. Activities centered on bringing about change in the community and shaping policy. Childcare centers, families, and the community were all involved in encouraging healthy behaviors and physical fitness. Intervention centers got healthy food adjustments, family-based teaching on increased exercise and fresh vegetables, and physical activity infrastructure (Narzisi & Simons, 2020). In turn, the results of the experiment intervention demonstrate its long-term effectiveness. Thus, community-level interventions work better than individual ones and should address such social determinants as income and social status, education and literacy, and neighborhood and built environment.
Recommendation for Enhancement
However, at the community level, it might be challenging to introduce the needed physical infrastructure and availability of healthy and nutritious food due to the lack of fundamental premises for using such advancements by impoverished families. The recommended enhancement, as a result, concerns national financial policy and nutrition literacy programs. According to Brown et al. (2019), ParentCorps, which was created to address academic performance inequalities among underprivileged children in New York City, significantly lowered childhood obesity. The Earned Income Tax Credit, which sought to improve personal wealth among low-income working households, had a ripple effect, resulting in lower low birth weight rates. Thus, interventions that concentrate on education and fiscal policy have a long-term influence on minority population health and decrease health inequalities in terms of childhood obesity.
Conclusion
To conclude, population health interventions are significant due to their large-scale impact on disease prevention and related morbidity, as well as hospitalization. As demonstrated in the paper, early childhood obesity intervention reduces the risks of obesity in adulthood. Therefore, population health interventions contribute to advanced nursing practice by providing instruments of preventive care that work for multiple people without the monitoring of the healthcare practitioners.
References
Astell-Burt, T., Rowbotham, S., & Hawe, P. (2018). Communicating the benefits of population health interventions: The health effects can be on par with those of medication. SSM – Population Health, 6, 54–62.
Brown, A. F., Ma, G. X., Miranda, J., Eng, E., Castille, D., Brockie, T., Jones, P., Airhihenbuwa, C. O., Farhat, T., Zhu, L., & Trinh-Shevrin, C. (2019). Structural interventions to reduce and eliminate health disparities. American Journal of Public Health, 109(S1), S72–S78.
Narzisi, K., & Simons, J. (2020). Interventions that prevent or reduce obesity in children from birth to five years of age: A systematic review. Journal of Child Health Care, 25(2), 320–334.