ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Environmental Health

Environmental Health

This assignment investigates the need for a project that would create a wellness program and other related services for the employees of a local organization: the XYX fitness club. This paper will examine the need for such program, the planning, the evaluating, and the implementation part. Part of the initial investigation includes a research, an interview with the general manager, a questionnaire compiled by the employees, and the data review.

Mission Statement

The mission of Ladies Only Fitness is the following:

Create a woman-focused workout environment that promotes confidence in our clients.

Promote the success of our clients in meeting their fitness goals.

Celebrate their successes and help them set new fitness goals.

Objectives

The objectives of Ladies Only Fitness are the following:

Exceed 60% class capacity by the end of the first year of operation.

Acquire 200+ memberships by the end of the first year of operation.

The Precede-Proceed

The Precede-Proceed model provides a comprehensive structure for assessing health and quality-of-life needs and for designing, implementing, and evaluating health promotion and other public health programs to meet those needs. PRECEDE (Predisposing, Reinforcing, and Enabling Constructs in Educational Diagnosis and Evaluation) outlines a diagnostic planning process to assist in the development of targeted and focused public health programs. PROCEED (Policy, Regulatory, and Organizational Constructs in Educational and Environmental Development) guides the implementation and evaluation of the programs designed using PRECEDE.

PRECEDE consists of five steps or phases (see Figure 1). Phase one involves determining the quality of life or social problems and needs of a given population. Phase two consists of identifying the health determinants of these problems and needs. Phase three involves analyzing the behavioral and environmental determinants of the health problems. In phase four, the factors that predispose to, reinforce, and enable the behaviors and lifestyles are identified. Phase five involves ascertaining which health promotion, health education and/or policy-related interventions would best be suited to encouraging the desired changes in the behaviors or environments and in the factors that support those behaviors and environments.

PROCEED is composed of four additional phases. In phase six, the interventions identified in phase five are implemented. Phase seven entails process evaluation of those interventions. Phase eight involves evaluating the impact of the interventions on the factors supporting behavior, and on behavior itself. The ninth and last phase comprises outcome evaluation—that is, determining the ultimate effects of the interventions on the health and quality of life of the population.

The XYX fitness club is a multi-sport facility located on the north side of Chicago. It serves a large community by providing tennis, racquetball, swimming, and other fitness services to its members. Over eighty people between full-time and part-time members of staff are employed at this establishment. Most full-time employees are middle class earners, over forty years old, working over forty hours per week. It is not uncommon for staff members to work up to seventy hours in a single week. The need for a wellness program was determined through a program evaluation. The planning and the implementation followed.

Many employees thought of health as being solely the absence ...