Essay On Health Intervention In Canada

Like many developed countries, Canada also has issues related to socioeconomic status and inequality that could affect the population’s health; indeed, Canada is well known for using upstream interventions to address inequality issues that exist in their country. Beside universal health care, Canadian has never stopped searching for new ways to improve the population’s health. An organization called Youth Excel created a program where everyone most importantly the youth is involved in reducing smoking in the intention of preventing some incidence of cancer and other smoking-related diseases. Based on the program’s details, it is a well-developed program that may benefit other countries including the United States if considered.

Canadian Health Intervention Involving the Youth

In the effort of reducing health disparities, Canada has been known to focus and adopt about thirteen primary public interventions. These

interventions would involve an attempt to regulate, increase access to health care, as well as monitor the economic impact of the problem. Researchers also noted that Canadian’s leaders and their health care professionals understand that to reduce health inequality, they must start by reducing unemployment and raise education levels. With that said, one of the thirteenth interventions was creating an anti-smoking campaign.
1. Provide a description of an existing intervention in Canada, intended to improve health inequities.
The anti-smoking campaign was originally focused on helping women to quit smoking.

It started by offering six class course for low-income women with low level of education. This course was intended for six years, but after the first six months of finishing the program, it was evaluated that 22% of the women population stopped smoking, and the 67% of those who did not stop, reduced in their smoking consumption. (National Collaborating Center for Health Public Policy, 2011). Since the primary purpose of promoting smoking cessation, is to prevent the likelihood of developing cancer, this intervention was not enough. Most recently, an organization called Youth Excel decided to shift the focus of preventing cancer-related cigarette smoking to the younger generation.” If we as a society are to prevent, delay, and minimize the negative impact of as much illness as possible in our population, then we must create living conditions that result in youth living in a healthy way throughout their lives” (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011, para.

2.).
1.1 Include an explanation of the inequity and how the intervention targets upstream determinants of health.
Canadian health professionals believe in reducing the likelihood of the population developing diseases such as cancer and or other related problems that could appear later in life; therefore, they focus their priority on educating the youth, while assessing their understanding of disease process and their socioenvironmental. “In the realm of prevention, there is a growing focus on going “upstream” to bring about changes in living conditions that improve the health of entire populations and reduce disparities among subpopulations among those with and without pre-existing illness” (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011, para. 4.). Researchers believe that if the bad behaviors that caused diseases could have stopped at an early age or never started at all, tomorrow’s society will have a brighter and healthier future.
2. Describe the organizations involved and/or social policies enacted in the implementation of the intervention.
Youth Excel (multiprovincial Canadian collaboration) has a vision for all federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions in Canada to join forces with policymakers, health care professionals, researchers, evaluators, as well as the youth to first set priorities for intervention, and then learn from the action (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011). One of the intervention is to reduce youth incidence of tobacco use that can lead to cancer and other chronic diseases. The intervention consists of using the Joint Consortium for School Health (JCSH) to provide leadership while working together with the health sectors to improve student health. The intervention also consists of the Propel Center for Population Health Impact, and they partner with the Canadian Cancer Society and the University of Waterloo to facilitate Canadian developments that participate in research and evaluation concerning the population. Also, SHAPES which stands for School Health Action Planning and Evaluation System would generate school health profile as quickly as possible from all regions, province, or country to help support local data collection while guiding the planning and impact of multiple level interventions. “SHAPES has validated modules for tobacco use,40 healthy eating,41 physical activity,48 and mental fitness49 (for details, see http://www.shapes.uwaterloo.ca accessed February 7, 2011)” (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011, para.18.).
3. Explain whether or not the intervention was/is successful
Youth Excel has been very successful, besides, “in the 30 months of initial CLASP funding, Youth Excel will advance its 10-year capacity and impact goals through 3 specific aims” (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011, para. 20.). The Aim of the interventions focused on following: turn evidence to action and 2) deriving evidence from action by developing consensus-building protocols within and across provinces. Next to the development of effective KDE capacity in diverse provincial contexts through in-depth case comparisons, and last to reinforce collaboration among research, policy, practice, and youth leaders within and across jurisdictions. (Riley, Manske, Cameron, 2011, para. 21.).
3.1 What lessons public health practitioners can learn from that experience that might improve population health in the United States.
There are many youth organizations, and health agencies in the United States, but a comprehensive, collaborative, non-bias as it concerns prejudice and social status would have a greater impact on the school system as well as be of more significant benefit to the people of the United States. Although the United State (US) is the number one Country of the world, with the most resources, it is not convincing that the U. S. believe in upstream investment. “Upstream investments” is defined as interventions in which the aimed is focusing on the root causes of a population health problem or benefit (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2013). For example, researchers have already proved that health problems do not just happen, they accumulated from behaviors, genes, and the environment.
It is understood that there are factors that cannot be changed; however, behaviors can. “Health prospects are, at least in part, determined by educational opportunity and achievement, and learning outcomes are often dependent upon health status. Both health and education are linked to the economic performance and social cohesion of modern industrialized society” (Lee, Tsang, Lee, To, 2003, para. 2). Why letting political bias and inequality determine where the best programs should be? Like Canada, why not focusing on our school system to make changes that would benefit all zip codes.