Introduction
It is important to note that diabetes is a chronic condition where an individual’s body experiences issues with blood sugar regulations. Although there are a number of key underlying reasons behind the disease, such as genetics, diet, sleep, and weight, and others, behavioral elements play a central role in both preventing the occurrence of diabetes and minimizing health risks for someone who already has the condition. The purpose of the given assessment is to identify a theoretical framework for the people struggling with diabetes, specifically, communities under the program of the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists. It was determined that the health belief model could be considered as one of the most applicable and relevant ones for the community.
Health Education and Health Promotion
It should be noted that health promotion and health education are interrelated actions since they have an informative aspect to both of them. However, the inherent difference between health education and health promotion is rooted in the fact that the latter is designed to provide an incentive and call for action, whereas the former is solely focused on delivering accurate and up-to-date information without any agenda. It is stated that health education can be a vital aspect of health promotion, and the former is used to increase the health literacy of the public (Nutbeam, 2019).
Despite the described differences between health education and health promotion, it is stated that “health education continues to be considered within the wider context of health promotion, as one of a number of complementary approaches to improving health in populations that also includes social mobilization and political advocacy that may have a more profound impact on the social and economic determinants of health” (Nutbeam, 2019, p. 4). Therefore, the key difference is that health education is a major part of health promotional efforts, but the latter can also utilize other means, such as social media (Gabarron et al., 2018).
Community-based Health Promotion Program
The selected program is the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists or ADCES. The given organization primarily focuses on providing diabetic and pre-diabetic communities with supportive, managerial, and educational services in order to encourage high-quality care and complication reduction (“About ADCES,” 2021). In other words, ADCES is engaged in a health promotion strategy for people struggling with diabetes in order to empower them through care and educational efforts. The organization achieves its objectives by promoting behavioral health integration, diabetes care optimization, person-centered care advocacy, clinical management enhancement, and cardiometabolic condition integration (“About ADCES,” 2021). In addition, ADCES leverages technological advancements and related instruments to provide superb education, support, and care.
Health Promotion Model
The selected health promotion model for ADCES is the health belief model, which is designed to mitigate risky behaviors and promote healthy ones. It is stated that “the HBM studies behavior at an individual and community level by conceptualizing the determinants of behavior into several contributing factors called construct” (Carico et al., 2020). For example, a person’s individual beliefs can include perceived self-efficacy, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, and perceived threat, which influence an individual or communal behaviors alongside modifying factors, such as knowledge, socioeconomic status, personality, ethnicity, gender, and age (Carico et al., 2020).
The health belief model claims that “individual beliefs and direct cues to action inform behavior. In turn, beliefs are informed by one’s background and are comprised of one’s impression of the perceived threat, the perceived benefits to taking action, the perceived barriers to taking action, and one’s perceived ability to take action” (Carico et al., 2020, p. 2). Therefore, the selected framework is highly suitable for the community of ADCES since people with diabetes are heavily affected by their own perception of the risks of the condition and the benefits of the preventative or treatment measures.
Applying The Health Belief Model
Diabetes is a complex metabolic condition, which can be the result of a multitude of factors. However, there are commonly known elements of the disease, such as exercise, diet, and genetics. Since ADCES is already focused on the educational part as the main approach for health promotion, the health belief model can be a useful addition because it can address the individual beliefs and perception of provided knowledge rather than mere information provision. In other words, the model does not solely rely on health education since it also includes perceived barriers and perceived self-efficacy, which are not explicitly bound to knowledge provision.
The application of the model will focus on increasing the levels of perceived threat as well as increasing the perceived benefits of care. Perceived barriers will be eliminated and perceived self-efficacy improved since simply being knowledgeable about the disease does not necessarily promote healthy behaviors. Therefore, self-efficacy should be a core aspect of health promotion, which is not tied to health education.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the health belief model can be highly useful for ADCES’s health promotion efforts among people and communities with diabetes in order to comprehensively support the target population. These measures are not solely reliant on health education as means of health promotion since a person’s self-efficacy can be a deciding factor of one takes action or not.
References
About ADCES. (2021). Web.
Carico, R. “Ron,” Sheppard, J., & Thomas, C. B. (2020). Community pharmacists and communication in the time of COVID-19: Applying the health belief model. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 17(1), 1984-1987. Web.
Gabarron, E., Bradway, M., Fernandez-Luque, L., Chomutare, T., Hansen, A. H., Wynn, R., & Årsand, E. (2018). Social media for health promotion in diabetes: Study protocol for a participatory public health intervention design. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 1-5. Web.
Nutbeam, D. (2019). Health education and health promotion revisited. Health Education Journal, 78(6), 705–709. Web.