DNP 825 Topic 1 Discussion Question Two
DNP 825 Topic 1 Discussion Question Two
Identify a population-based problem of interest, such as obesity among children. After reviewing topical information in Healthy People 2020 and The Community Guide to Preventive Services, identify relevant outcomes related to this problem that will help guide your plans for intervention.
For nations to improve the health of their populations, some have cogently argued, they need to move beyond clinical interventions with high-risk groups. This concept was best articulated by Rose (1992), who noted that “medical thinking has been largely concerned with the needs of sick individuals.” Although this reflects an important mission for medicine and health care, it is a limited one that
DNP 825 Topic 1 Discussion Question Two
does little to prevent people from becoming sick in the first place, and it typically has disregarded issues related to disparities in access to and quality of preventive and treatment services. Personal health care is only one, and perhaps the least powerful, of several types of determinants of health, among which are also included genetic, behavioral, social, and environmental factors (IOM, 2000; McGinnis et al., 2002). To modify these, the nation and the intersectoral public health system must identify and exploit the full potential of new options and strategies for health policy and action.
Three realities are central to the development of effective population-based prevention strategies. First, disease risk is currently conceived of as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. There is no clear division between risk for disease and no risk for disease with regard to levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, physical activity, diet and weight, lead exposure, and other risk factors. In fact, recommended cutoff points for management or treatment of many of these risk factors have changed dramatically and in a downward direction over time (e.g., guidelines for control of “hypertension” and cholesterol), in acknowledgment of the increased risk associated with common moderately elevated levels of a given risk factor. This continuum of risk is also apparent for many social and environmental conditions as well (e.g., socioeconomic status, social isolation, work stress, and environmental exposures). Any population model of prevention should be built on the recognition that there are degrees of risk rather than just two extremes of exposure (i.e., risk and no risk).
The second reality is that most often only a small percentage of any population is at the extremes of high or low risk. The majority of people fall in the middle of the distribution of risk. Rose (1981, 1992) observed that exposure of a large number of people to a small risk can yield a more absolute number of cases of a condition than exposure of a small number of people to a high risk. This relationship argues for the development of strategies that focus on the modification of risk for the entire population rather than for specific high-risk individuals. Rose (1981) termed the preventive approach the “prevention paradox” because it brings large benefits to the community but offers little to each participating individual. In other words, such strategies would move the entire distribution of risk to lower levels to achieve maximal population gains.