Health Promotion at the Different Stages of Human Life

This essay will discuss the opportunities for health promotion at different stages of a person’s lifespan. Such approaches include: medical, such as immunisation from virus-es, behaviour change, for example, take up exercise and a balanced diet, educational (leaflets and adverts to highlight problems with smoking), empowerment (group cir-cles) and social change, such as smoking bans in public places, from lobbying groups. This essay will seek to explain the different health impacts of smoking on the adoles-cence stage, 10-19 years old, and the health promotion interventions on this group.

Furthermore, the importance of ethical principles in the health promotion and public health will be analysed. Health promotion is a program that empower, engage and en-ables peoples to improve their health and make them in the state of complete mentally, physical and social wellbeing (Hubley and Copeman 2013). Background. One of the main interventions for helping adolescents quit smoking is called ‘Smoking Cessation’. The objectives of smoking cessation are well established and includes enhanced treatment efficacy and improved quality of life (Graham, 2016). At present, the average smoking prevalence globally is estimated to be 31.1% for men and 6.2% for women. Smoking is the most important preventable cause of fatality as nearly 6 million deaths every year are caused by this habit, and smoking leads to many adverse health consequences as well (Sun and Mendez, 2019).

It has one of the biggest impacts on the health of males and females at the adolescence stage. This is sufficient proof that health intervention methods are needed. Smoking cessation intervention The objective of this essay is to develop a stop-smoking program to reduce the num-ber of adolescents becoming addicted to it. The planned activities used to achieve these goals could include having a ‘Raise awareness’ programme for 6 weeks in schools, which would include people coming in to give talks on the effects of smoking in gen-eral, information sessions on tobacco consumption being delivered to all adolescents - both smokers and non-smokers. This would be a good idea as it may prevent them from even starting the habit in the first place, if they see how it can affect them.

The classes will even include free advice on how to quit smoking, if the adolescents have already begun. Workshops can be implemented that include seeing in person, all the chemicals that are contained in cigarettes, and the mental, physical and social effects it has. Volunteers could be used to hand out free ‘quit-smoking’ kits. The behaviour change approach will be offered with a motivational interview and advice on strategies for resisting the desire to smoke. The kits could include smoking patches or e-cigarettes designed to wean individuals off the tobacco addiction. This may be expen-sive as these items are not cheap, but it could give people the incentive to try them if they are getting them for free. A cheaper solution might be to have people giving out advice as opposed to handing out free kits. They can then refer the public to the NHS for advice on quitting and the steps needed to do this. In terms of theory, Naidoo and Wills (2016) argue that there have been many health promotion methods in the past and in the present. However, they claim that for health promotion to develop and work, a strong theoretical framework is vital. They state that one prominent theory to tackle smoking habits is Beattie’s four-way paradigm towards tacking social and health problems.

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The four parts includes, Health persuasion, Legisla-tive action, Personal counselling and Community development. In terms of quitting smoking, health persuasion, specialist social workers in this field, can be sent to educa-tional institutions, to persuade adolescents to quit smoking or at the very least, give advice as to why smoking is detrimental to their bodies. Legislative actions would in-clude lobbying for tighter controls on selling cigarettes to older adolescents and maybe raise the legal age if needed. Personal counselling could include motivational interview-ing by youth workers sent to schools and colleges to persuade youngsters to give up and refrain from smoking. Finally, community development could be schools working with each other to empower them and give them staff-training to increase skills and methods of tackling smoking. Naidoo and Wills (2016) argue that Beattie’s model is great in terms of deciding a strategy for progress on health, whilst simultaneously, leaving scope for political and social intervention.

Evaluation the success of the Intervention

The best way to evaluate successful intervention is to do testing on the number of ado-lescents smoking before the 6-week program, and then carrying out similar tests on whether the numbers have increased, stayed the same or decreased, due to the pro-posed intervention. However, it is important to note that it may be difficult to reduce number of smokers within six weeks. Hence, a lengthier time may be needed, based on results. Furthermore, testing accurately may be difficult because students may not be honest as to whether they have given up after the intervention has finished. Hence, re-liability of results may be skewed. Finally, the costs of such interventions need to be weighed against the benefits, which again, may be inaccurate.

Ethical issues of intervention in Adolescence

In terms of ethical issues with the intervention, individuals may feel they are being judged and therefore, may become resistant to being tested or even going ahead with the planned intervention (Naidoo and Wills, 2009). Naidoo and Wills (2009), argue that there are four ethical principles that are widely accepted: respect for autonomy, which in this case, giving adolescents their right to do what they want with their lives. Beneficence – the commitment to do beneficial actions, mostly from the practitioner side in this case, as they would want to benefit the adoles-cents. Non-maleficence, which is the obligation not to harm individuals in the interven-tion process, and finally, justice, the obligation to act fairly when dealing with adoles-cents’ rights. These actions must be considered when undertaking the intervention strategy with all adolescents.

Conclusion

To conclude, smoking cessation initiatives on adolescents is an important public health intervention because it prevents nicotine dependence and severe health consequences in the future and increases the life expectancy of the general population. Furthermore, the need for protected and steady families, sheltered and strong schools, together with constructive and strong companions are critical to helping adolescents reach their maximum potential, and achieve the best wellbeing in the change to adulthood.