HEALTH PREVENTION EFFORT

.

National Prevention Effort



National Prevention Effort

Introduction

Health is an important factor for any society and health literacy is the single most biggest factor in the National Prevention Efforts. Health literacy is increasingly applicable and relevant to practice within health care and health research systems around the world. Most of the major advances in health since the beginning of the 20th century are due to the application of new knowledge and technologies such as immunizations and preventive medicine. Health literacy is the fundamental skills and abilities that allow health systems and health care professionals to promote those new advances and allow individuals to receive, understand, and use that information in their daily lives.In addition, a health literate individual is more aware of the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health and is more prepared to engage in individual and collective actions that can improve the status of those determinants(Barton,2004).

The evidence base on health literacy includes significant findings that people with lower health literacy often experience the following:

Poorer adherence to medical regimes

Poorer understanding of their own health

Less knowledge about medical care and conditions

Poorer understanding of medical information

Lower understanding and use of preventive services

Being less likely to seek health care early

Being less likely to ask questions of a health care professional

Poorer self-reported health

Increased hospitalization

Increased health care costs

Poorer health status

Being less likely to receive needed kidney transplants

Earlier death



Discussion

The healthcare system of a country depends upon some factors. These factors play a significant role in the growth and development of health sector of a country. In addition, the stability of the healthcare industry is also dependent upon these factors; these factors are service delivery in the health industry, the quality of healthcare, the stability of financing in healthcare and the healthcare insurance. In March 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which requires all U.S. citizens to carry health insurance, and provides federal subsidies to people who are not covered by their employers and cannot afford to purchase their own health insurance. Republicans bristled at the plan, arguing that it increased the government's role in the health care system and insisting that it amounted to socialism. The PPACA remained controversial even after it was passed, with Republicans attempting to have it repealed and challenged in court.Following are some of the National Prevention efforts initiated by USA to increase their public health.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010

President Barack Obama, on February 28 endorsed a measure that he said would allow states to opt out of some elements of the health insurance reform law signed in March 2010 by giving them greater flexibility to provide alternative means of achieving the federal law's goals. Under the proposed Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) bill, beginning in 2014, states would be allowed to develop feasible alternatives to the federal law, as long as they added comparable numbers of people to insurance rolls without increasing the federal deficit

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 established the first-ever National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council out ...