Priority Health Issues in Benton County, Oregon
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Priority Health Issues in Benton County, Oregon
Priority Health Needs and Reason for Selection
| Vulnerability/Health Need | Reason for Selection |
| Adult obesity | Affecting a large population in Benton County in Oregon leads to a rise in the number of hypertensive patients visiting Benton health facilities. |
| Air pollution-particulate matter
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It is becoming a major health need due to increasing industrialization and increased respiratory infections in Benton County. |
| Mental health issues | Increase number of Benton County hospital residents recording depression and increased number of suicide cases among young adults |
| Adult smoking | An exponential rise in the number of lung cancer cases over the last two years (McCann & Brown, 2018). Additionally, there is a rise in cases of Bronchitis and emphysema among the population. |
Review and Analysis of Benton County’s Demographic and Population Health Data
Analysis of Benton County Demographic Data
The population of Benton County has slightly decreased, evidenced by census data of 2010 population where the population was 85,579, and in 2014, the population was 85,581. However, that was a mere chance, so the population of Benton County is fairly constant. Compared to Oregon State, Benton County has a lower percentage of the population under five years, recording 4.8% for children under five years of age. According to the demographic data presented, Benton County has a slightly lower percentage of women than men. Based on the demographic data, the county exhibits a large percentage of the population living under poverty, recording a 22.5% way higher than the Oregon state, which has a lower percentage level of poverty 16.2%.
Additionally, Benton County has higher housing units in multi-unit structures than Oregon State, recording a percentage of 29.3, which is way higher than 23.2% seen in Oregon State, evidencing a possible housing problem in Benton County. The mean travel time to work is 18.9 minutes indicating that commuting could be a major health problem in Benton. Benton County has quite a significant number of veterans of 5561, which has a sign on the health system as the county is likely to record higher cases of mental health issues.
Population Health Data Analysis
Benton County has many priority health needs, which include Obesity, air pollution, mental health issues, and adult smoking, which is posing a major health risk to the community. The high major health issue in the society is a result of the high number of veterans indicated, 5561, in the demographic data since being a veteran is a risk factor to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, which might lead to depressive states among the veterans (McCann & Brown, 2018). Additionally, the demographic data evidence a housing problem in Benton, which indicates a higher population living under low socioeconomic status. The low possibility of low socioeconomic status is worth noticing since it is among the major social determinants of health.
Based on the population health analysis, long-distance is another major health issue that requires the attention of policymakers in Benton with a large population recording 18.9 minutes’ distance coverage to work? Further, the Benton community has a 22.5% population living under poverty, which puts the population at risk of developing protein-energy malnutrition problems (McCann & Brown, 2018). Analysis of the demographic data and population health of Benton County as it serves as a hallmark to identifying the major health issues facing the residents of Benton County.
Factors That Widen Gaps in Healthcare Access
| 1.Poverty levels |
| 2.Spoken Language |
| 3.Race and ethnicity groups |
| 4.Geographical factors |
| 5.Community literacy levels |
Discussion of the Factors
Access care refers to a timely, convenient utilization of healthcare, which should be affordable to all. However, some factors might hinder equity in access to health care.
Poverty levels is one of the major factor leading to a large percentage being unable to access health care. For instance, with the high percentage of Benton’s population living under poverty, the population’s percentage may be unable to access the health care facility. Race and ethnicity are other factors that might widen the gap in health care access. There are some health disparities for minority racial and ethnic groups.
Spoken language is another factor that might increase the gap in healthcare access, with those less proficient in speaking and understanding English finding it hard to access health care. The geographical factor would be another important factor that would increase the gap in healthcare access. The factor would be important because when health care facilities are inaccessible due to distance. Literacy levels may also widen the gap in health care access because this with low literacy levels may not fully understand the need to seek medical care for various health conditions. A widening in this gap is likely to result in further widening of the gap.
Strategic Recommendations to Address the Gaps
The gap in access to health care resulting from high poverty levels can be curbed by offering financial support to those with financial constraints. Additionally, the government can provide business loans to those of low socioeconomic status. With these strategies, the gap in socioeconomic status is narrow, narrowing the gap in healthcare access.
Health disparities resulting from differences in a social group can be eliminated by measuring policies against discrimination based on racial groups. Further, any person who violates these policies should have actions taken against them (Rider et al., 2018). The widening gap due to the spoken language can be limited by coming up with a common language in hospitals. Additionally, translators can understand all languages in hospitals to help translate to those who are less proficient in speaking English.
The gap due to geographical factors can be solved by constructing more health facilities to increase accessibility. Alternatively, building proper roads leading to the available hospitals would be an option to solve inaccessibility. Gap due to literacy levels can be addressed by ensuring that education is provided to all those groups to appreciate the need to seek medical attention.
Community Resources and Partners Needed to Advance My Recommendations
To achieve the set strategies set to ensure health access to all regardless of the gap created by various factors, it is essential to partner effectively. The partnership does not only involve partnering with organizations and individuals within the organization but also within outside the community. For the implementation to be successful, those spearheading the change towards improved healthcare access should have a clear vision and mission, a well-defined action plan, effective leadership, well-documented feedback from the community residents, and, above all, adequate resources from the community (Rider et al., 2018). For the desired transformation to be effective, three essential partnerships are vital. These include state and community partnerships, support and intermediary organizations, and grant makers-private foundations.
State and community partnerships aim to bring together individuals and organizations that are working towards a similar goal. For instance, community partnerships aiming to achieve access to health care will bring together all health workers. Together, it would be easier to achieve the common goal of narrowing the gap in access to healthcare.
Support and intermediary organizations such as research centers and community-based organizations assist the selected community partners in developing skills they need to be experts in their work fields. Some of the skills they might need include: Community assessment skills, community action and advocacy, community evaluation, strategic planning, and obtaining resources to sustain the effort.
Grant makers-foundation is crucial in achieving the goal for healthcare access as they help create conditions for success (Wang et al., 2018). Additionally, they bring people together for a common purpose. They can also assist by leveraging funds and resources by creating a good rapport with the grant-makers.
Stakeholders That Will Serve as Community Partners
| Stakeholder | Role of stakeholder | How will relationship benefit the organization |
| State and community partnerships | It is bringing together members of the community with a common goal to work together to achieve the goal. | By bringing together the community members with a common goal of ensuring health access to all, the community can work together in closing the gap in healthcare access due to various factors. |
| Support and intermediary organizations | Aims at providing the community partners with the required skills to work towards the goal of ensuring health care access to all (Wang et al., 2018). Some of these skills include community assessment skills, community evaluation, and community advocacy and action. | The partnership will benefit the community by ensuring that all the community partners involved have the necessary skills to achieve the set objective. |
| Grant makers-foundation | It helps at leveraging funds and resources necessary to achieve the goal of healthcare access to all. Additionally, they serve as connectors of partners to various grant organizations. | Resources are vital for the change to be achieved; thus, it becomes easier to achieve the objective with the grantmaker foundation. |
Resources Managed by Each Community partner\ and How Beneficial It Is
State and community partnerships manage health representatives by bringing them together. The healthcare professionals are a vital resource in spearheading change to equitable health care access. State and intermediary organizations help manage skill acquaintance, which is an essential resource in achieving the necessary change (Rider et al., 2018). Grantmaker foundation is essential in leveraging funds, which are an important resource in aspiring to change. The management of these resources is crucial in normal day-to-day life and in crisis, such as health constraints, which might require some resources.
| In normal day-to-day operations? | In a crisis situation? |
| In a normal day to day operations, the resources should be managed in such a way that resources serve the central purpose, which is to address the priority health needs. | In a crisis, when there are some financial constraints, an action plan entailing the short term and the long-term measures should be formulated to prevent the collapse of a health care facility. |
Action Plan That Will Improve Financial Performance in ABC-XWY in Benton County is on the verge of collapsing.
Financial constraints are a risk to any business, not excluding health facilities, and to avoid the risk of close down, a well-formulated action plan is crucial (Rider et al., 2018). The action plan should entail the immediate and the long-term measures to put into place to save the already collapsing clinic in Benton County. Some of the immediate strategic recommendations that might help in preventing the collapse of the clinic include introducing pay cuts to all the health professionals working in that clinic. Another immediate strategic plan includes introducing strategies that aim at lowering the operational cost of the organization. Elimination of avoidable costs in the organization is crucial in ensuring that the clinic does not incur unnecessary expenditure on things they could otherwise avoid (Wang et al., 2018). Additionally, as part of the administration of the clinic, I could communicate with the creditors so as to acquire some loans to hold the clinic from collapsing.
For the long-term strategies, the organization should aim at consolidating debts and reinvesting the amounts to the clinic. Also, selling some unused assets of the clinic can help in the generation of funds to improve the clinic is an important long term strategy that the clinic might adopt. Additionally, the clinic might organize some fundraising organizations to help raise funds to support it. Additionally, as a manager, I would develop policies to help curb all the corruption in the clinic to ensure there is transparency in the way funds are spent in the clinic. Further, the action plan would entail requesting support from some granting organizations to raise the clinic’s financial status and prevent further collapse. Implementing these strategies is essential in ensuring that there is an improvement in the clinic’s financial status. Implementing these immediate and long-term strategies can help in saving the collapsing clinic, and thus the plan is worth implementation.
References
McCann, E., & Brown, M. (2018). The inclusion of LGBT+ health issues within undergraduate healthcare education and professional training programmes: A systematic review. Nurse education today, 64, 204-214. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S026069171830100X
Rider, G. N., McMorris, B. J., Gower, A. L., Coleman, E., & Eisenberg, M. E. (2018). Health and care utilization of transgender and gender nonconforming youth: A population-based study. Pediatrics, 141(3). https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/3/e20171683.short
Wang, J., Mann, F., Lloyd-Evans, B., Ma, R., & Johnson, S. (2018). Associations between loneliness and perceived social support and outcomes of mental health problems: a systematic review. BMC psychiatry, 18(1), 156. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-018-1736-5