Answer To: Scholar-Practitioner Project Final Report Now that you have completed your...
David answered on Dec 22 2021
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Running Head: POPULATION HEALTH
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PAGE
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POPULATION HEALTH
Population Health
Name
Institution
Population Health
Issue Summary
Health Issue
Population health involves improvement of the wellbeing of an entire population, through a range of measures meant to reduce health inequities while creating a sustainable health care system. This however, calls for action in four main areas, which include partnerships, leadership, policy development, and advocacy. Partnerships usually involve development of inter-sectoral strategies. This is to facilitate the creation of essential health promoting conditions for the population. Leadership on the other hand, requires the identification of worrying health issues and taking proper measures through strong leadership to redressing them. This goes hand in hand with policy development, which in recent times is seeking to transition from an illness driven model to a model that focuses on the health status of the entire population (VCH, 2006, p. 2).
The concept of health life expectancy has been of particular interest to health experts and policy makers alike. This arose from the realisation that understanding life expectancy, easily offers a gateway to understanding and consequently improving the well-being of the entire population.
Significance of Life Expectancy and Its Relationship to Determinants of Health
Life expectancy has been observed to have raised steadily in high income countries in the last century. In the case of the United States however, the trend has been of a relatively slower rise as compared to other high income states and has recently been observed to stagnate. This has pushed policy makers to try and make sense of this new phenomenon, which has also been observed in Netherlands and Denmark over the last 25 years (PRB, 2011, p. 1).
Even with their relatively better living conditions and higher qualities of life, developed countries still have comparatively lower life expectancy rate. This is a topic that has always attracted a wide range of speculation and call for research. Concrete answers have however, still remained elusive even after considerable research. This therefore makes life expectancy a highly significant issue that society needs to understand. Key to exploring this issue would be understanding determinants of health. These are usually factors closely associated with public health and usually incorporate a wide range of factors such as people’s living conditions, economic and social policies, lifestyle, and working condition, among others (Wikinson & Marmot, 2003, p. 5).
Importance of Understanding Life Expectancy
The fact that life expectancy is a key indicator of the general status of the population makes it key to creating a healthier society. A relatively good understanding of life expectancy would therefore, lead to formulation of measures appropriate for improvement of health care and consequently contribute to a healthy population. In regard to this, this program was driven by the need to formulate effective measures of transforming research into sound, practical measures that contribute to a healthier society. The measures analysed include: commitment of provision of equitable health care for all groups in society, utilizing evidence based approach in tackling health access inequalities, diversification of methodologies used to identify population health determinant indicators, factors that influence life expectancy, and understanding social structures and dynamic and their influence on health care inequalities (Kelly & Bonnefoy, 2007, p. 15).
Barriers to Addressing Life Expectancy Issues
Poor life expectancy has long been associated with social disadvantage and marginalization. While this has been well established, the...