Activity 1

This is a well overdue blog post I have been meaning to do.

I define health promotion by using the three levels of prevention –

1. Primary Prevention
2. Secondary Prevention
3. Tertiary Prevention

These three levels of prevention offer three different stages of intervention used to improve the health of an individual. These stages of prevention enables the individual to have control over their own health while taking into the account other factors such as social, economical and environmental in order to improve their over health and well being. Primary prevention involves an intervention method of preventing the onset of disease or action, for example through immunisation of Hepatitis B or education. Secondary prevention involves focus on the at-risk population through methods such as early screening for possible onset of disease. Tertiary prevention involves reducing harm associated with a factor in an individuals life.

Challenges in health promotion

1. Currently a big challenge in health promotion revolves around underdeveloped countries who are unable to keep up with the latest technology and advancements to practice health promotion.
2. Challenges are involved in helping the at risk communities. Issues regarding to ethics and culture are always present as many religions may involve unsafe practices but intervening can cause disrespect.
3. Large and powerful industries can create issues regarding policy making and intervention methods as these industries do not want to lose profits even if it is for improve health and well being. Since smoking has been proven to be unhealthy and directly related to lung cancer how are they still sold legally?
4. The lack of health literacy in society.

 

Day 1 – Induction

Wow.

Thank you to the nice and encouraging comments made by everyone on all my posts. I really will get around to all your blogs soon but the past month has been non-stop for me. Today was my first day I was able to give myself a day off from everything – from work, from placement and from uni. I really cannot forget to give myself sometime to rest as the longer I went without a break, the less productive I got. I hope everyone else is looking after themselves as well during this crazy last year.

Day 1 – Today I left home a little early and caught the bus to the city. Could not believe that I do not qualify for student fares so I paid $15 for the bus today. Unbelievable! Will have to invest in an adult go card as parking isn’t an option. My first few hours in QuIHN I was introduced to all the staff (who were all extremely friendly and welcoming and were all so passionate about their jobs), was given a formal induction into the clinic and had to fill out so much paper work. All this took approximately 3 hours as I had to go through and read a stack of paperwork before I was allowed to commence my training.

I spent the rest of the day in the Needle and Syringe Program learning how to operate the NSP, the various needles, syringes and swabs available to the public, how to process a client who uses the NSP and the various drugs that are used by the community of injecting drug users. I also had time to go through the paperwork for the Hepatitis B project I was going to run with the other student. The project involves us giving clients pre and post counselling on Hepatitis B, performing the tests and marketing the project to the community who may be at risk. The next couple weeks I most likely will do 1 day a week so I can adjust my workload and work out a time schedule that would be suitable not only for me and the other student but also our supervisor and the doctors on site.

I look forward to this Sunday as it is my next day off from work and placement so I can thoroughly go through everyone’s blogs and read about your experiences.

Michael

note: I am extremely happy for Tracey Alexandra for being able to secure an amazing placement with LivesLivedWell. So proud of you and cannot wait to hear about it all.