Research Articles Base: Health Care Essays

Health and Development

Description of reality Modernization theory visualizes development in terms of a progressive movement towards technologically and institutionally more complex and integrated forms of ‘modern’ society. This process is set in motion and maintained through increasing involvement in commodity markets and through a series of interventions involving the transfer of technology, knowledge, resources and organizational forms from the more developed world or sector of a country to the less developed parts (Long 2001). In this way, traditional society is propelled into the modern world, and gradually, though not without some institutional hiccups, its economy and social patterns acquire the accoutrements of ‘modernity’. If development is supposed to come about through intervention and the restructuring of existing social forms, then development implies discontinuity, not continuity, with the past. The situation chosen for intervention is deemed inadequate or needing change; thus local bodies of knowledge, organizational forms and resources are implicitly de-legitimized; and consequently external inputs are assessed as necessary and indispensable. It is in this way that the normative framework and technical instruments of planned development are validated by interventionists (Long 2001).   Intervention should not be seen solely or perhaps even primarily as consisting of material and organizational inputs, but rather as involving a kind of trade in images which seeks to redefine the nature of state-civic society relations through the promotion of certain normative standards of what development is and should entail. One should recognize the central role played by technology in promoting new social values and ways of organizing society. The construction of these images is sustained by a process of labeling which functions to promote or impose certain interpretative schemata concerned with the diagnosis and solution of development problems (Crush 1995). Given the various persisting conditions, it becomes increasingly difficult to design models to promote clearly delineated development trajectories, identify alternative scenarios, or to predict the side effects of development policies. Indeed the side effects of planned interventions have become a central predicament for international development organizations since they have often exacerbated rather than ameliorated existing socio-political and ethnic conflict or deteriorating ecological imbalances and disasters (Crush 1995). Development should be a good thing. It should uplift the lives of individuals and societies. When used on negative ideas, development causes suffering. One instance on the negative use of development is woman trafficking. A United Nations report mentioned that about 4 million people have experienced trafficking every year. Women trafficking is rampant, more woman are victims of trafficking. Trafficking to women usually comes from a promise of job opportunity. As the victim applies and gets employed to the job they find themselves being employed in prostitution or they experience abuse. Once in such kind of job they get trapped and getting out is a very difficult thing to do. Trafficking in women is a worse kind of development. It was formed from the developed ideals of men and their developed concept of business. Trafficking in woman gave a negative image of development.   Technology and development Critical theory argues that technology is not a thing in the ordinary sense of the term, but an ambivalent process of development suspended between different possibilities. This ambivalence of technology is distinguished from neutrality by the role it attributes to social values in the design, and not merely the use, of technical systems. On this view, technology is not a destiny but a scene of struggle. It is a social battlefield, or perhaps a better metaphor would be a parliament of things in which civilizational alternatives contend (Feenberg 2001). Technology is a two-sided phenomenon: on the one hand, there is the operator; on the other, the object. Where both operator and object are human beings, technical action is an exercise of power. Where, further, society is organized around technology, technological power is the principal form of power in the society. One-dimensionality results from the difficulty of criticizing this form of power in terms of traditional concepts of justice, freedom, equality, and so on. But the exercise of technical power evokes resistances of a new type immanent to the one-dimensional technical system. These resistances implicitly challenge the technically based hierarchy (Feenberg 2001).    Since the locus of technical control influences technological development, new forms of control from below could set development on an original path. This two-sided interpretation of technology opens up a theory of technical politics better able to give insight into the contemporary world than substantivism, which adopts unthinkingly the strategic standpoint on technology and overlooks its role as a life-world. Modern civilization is supposed to be inherently incompatible with mass participation. Certainly, this is the implication of progress in the sphere of production through the relentless replacement of muscular power, manual skills, and, finally, intelligence by advancing technology. Technology provides the material framework of modernity. That framework is no neutral background against which individuals pursue their conception of the good life, but instead informs that conception from beginning to end. Different worlds, flowing from different technical arrangements, privilege some aspects of the human being and marginalize others (Pitt 2002). Technology and development oftentimes are interrelated. Technology causes development, development leads to newer technologies.  Technology on the other hand has negative implications for society. Unmanaged/unsupervised use of technology creates problems for society. Unsupervised use of television, the internet and magazines can be considered as the source of the current problems in society. The unsupervised use of media and technology created a radical notion of sex. This created early pregnancies and the evolved sexual orientation or the phenomena of having more than one gender preference. Television/internet/magazines contributed to the unusual raring of children. Some television shows introduced new ways of raising up a child. Not all new ways of raising a child created a better child, some created a rift in the relationship between parent and child. Moreover technologies such as television gave a false hope to people. Advertisements on the luxury experienced by those who work in the US or the UK created a wrong desire for people in poor countries to work in the developed countries.   Technology, development and health A complex interrelationship exists between health and development; it is certainly not a one-way relationship, and there are surely reciprocal and synergistic elements to it. It has long been acknowledged that the health status of the population in any particular place or country influences development. It can be a limiting factor, as generally poor individual health can lower work capacity and productivity; in aggregate in a population, this can severely restrict the growth of economies (Phillips & Verhasselt 1994). On the other hand, economic development can make it possible to finance good environmental health, sanitation and public health campaigns on education, immunization, screening and health promotion and to provide broader-based social care for needy groups. General social development, particularly education and literacy, has almost invariably been associated with improved health status via improved nutrition, hygiene and reproductive health. Socio-economic development, particularly if equitably spread through the population also enables housing and related services to improve. The classical cycle of poverty can be broken by development. Employing scientific method both to investigate and to categorize disease; helped in changing a holistic model to a fundamentally biomedical and reductionist one (Phillips & Verhasselt 1994).    As a consequence, the paradigms of health promotion and medicine effectively became separate processes for the first time, with the mantle of the former being instead taken up by non-medical sections of society, with shortcomings in institutional medical provisions. With the growth of medicine and its effectiveness, the public health movement went into slow decline, as science indeed began to deliver the promised land of health and prosperity. Health and prosperity were not, of course, for all, and even in wealthy Europe, significant differences remained between rich and poor (Macdonald 2003). In the empires of the European nations, ironically enough, the source of much of this wealth, disease and premature death remained endemic, though through science and civilization, such empires would, of course, deliver release for its grateful subjects. The weaknesses of health promotion in relation to its medical and nursing partners leaves a concern that, following the mainstreaming of the health promotion philosophy, the latter groups have reemerged to claim the tradition and territory as their own, with the subsequent lessening and even sidelining of the role of health promotion specialists. It remains to be seen what distinctiveness and influence remain for health promotion if and when the proposals for a unified and single collegiate structure for the public health workforce are implemented. In a similar vein, the interchangeable employment of the terms public health and health improvement is a regrettable development, especially where the latter term has been adopted as a functional description (Macdonald 2003).    Free from the baggage of politics or alignment with a specific functional or occupational grouping, health improvement had the opportunity of becoming an umbrella term defining the collective mission of all of those working towards the improvement of health, including those in public health medicine, dentistry and nursing, and health promotion, as well as those from housing, environmental health, and the myriad others engaged within a multidisciplinary public health workforce. When considering the ways globalization may be changing the nature of the policy context for health, it is important to bear in mind that the concept of globalization represents a set of processes, rather than a fixed endpoint. These complex processes are subject to varied and sometimes contradictory forces. Consequently, the costs and benefits of globalization will be experienced differently by different individuals, socio-economic classes, genders, communities, countries, and ecological and economic regions ((Buse, Fustukian & Lee 2002).  Indeed, the current phase of globalization of recent decades has witnessed a profound. Globalization, therefore, impacts variably on individuals and population groups, with many excluded from its benefits and vulnerable to its costs. The differentiated and multifaceted impacts that globalization is having, therefore, pose a conceptual challenge in attempting to ascribe changes to the policy context (Buse, Fustukian & Lee 2002). Health achieved development through the advancement of technologies. But the advancement of technologies did not assure that health care would reach all people. There is still an ongoing problem in the delivery of health service to those who really needs it. Health care are only received by those who can pay for it. If one is poor then no health care or health service will be provided. The advanced technology in health care has not reached poor countries. This is one of the reasons why most poor countries have a high rate of epidemics and mortality.   Globalization and development Globalization is not seen as the exclusive interaction of economic actors on the world scene, but as the implementation of socio-economic policies which give priority to market forces at the expense of social sectors and groups such as labor, minorities, and the marginalized. Globalization may be formulated in terms of economic tendencies, financial deregulation, or technological and cultural change, as a description of a process or as a project. However it is defined, the analysis of differentiated impacts on national realities and the possibility, or lack of possibility, for specific types of political intervention are, on the one hand, deeply rooted historical trends and, on the other hand, a function of more immediate political developments (Hersh & Schmidt 2000). Science is central to globalization, providing both a knowledge base for new products, as well as a cornerstone for the ideologies of positivism, scientism, and modernism which have helped to legitimize the destruction of other forms of knowledge. It has been in the name of science that a myth of progress has been constructed and upheld, according to which the diverse array of non-scientific human knowledges have come to be labeled traditional with all the negative and derogatory connotations that the term has come to imply (Hersh & Schmidt 2000).   Modern science is a composite form of knowledge production, which links curiosity to production, or the most basic scientific research to commercial technological applications. In regard to globalization, it is especially the scientist belief in the intrinsic superiority of scientific-technological rationality over all other forms of thought, as well as the centrality of “instrumental rationality” in the global political economy that is most significant. Traditional knowledge is programmatically rejected by both the theorists and practitioners of globalization, even though, in many areas of production and everyday life, the modern science of transnational firms and globally oriented academic institutions is increasingly being challenged by other modes of inquiry and practice. The later part of the twentieth century saw the advanced capitalist societies undergoing a fundamental transformation due to globalization, with far-reaching effects on domestic politics as well as international relations (Qin-Hilliard & Suárez-Orozco, MM 2004). Globalization is an economic process, which extends economic networks across the whole world and integrates them into a synchronized economic system, destroying indigenous economies, shaking up domestic political orders, and creating regional economic blocks at the same time. Globalization was initiated by multinational corporations in the core countries (Qin-Hilliard & Suárez-Orozco, MM 2004).   The increasing interconnectedness of the international economy has been accelerated by the development of the technology of micro-electronics, the communication industry, and the increase in trade among nations. However, the local response to the global changes differs from country to country according to the position within the world-system and local political dynamics. Thus, globalization has become a politically contested concept rather than a concept to capture the formation of the global economy. It also has not been free from political ideology because social classes and social groups advocate particular features of globalization for their own interests. Globalization must not come to mean the Death of Politics or the Death of Social Ideals. On the contrary, people must insist that societies and social forces have the inherent right to protect themselves and to choose meaningful ways of politically constituting their actions to this end. This includes the right of society and social forces within it to protection from the destructive vagaries of the unregulated or self-regulated market (McBride & Wiseman 2000). Other social rights such as globalization that could be enumerated would include the right of individuals, families and communities to employment, welfare, social stability and social justice; the right of the poor, dispossessed and marginalized, wherever they exist, to resist the imposition of poverty and the intensification of social polarization (McBride & Wiseman 2000). Globalization has created various changes in almost all aspects. Globalization has not proven its worth to the third world countries. It has not helped in improving the plight of people in the third world countries. Although the third world countries usually have bad leaders who contribute to the economic problems, globalization doesn’t help in solving their problems. Globalization creates an opportunity for rich countries to manipulate the poor countries. The plight of people in the third world country forces them to engage in unacceptable activities like trafficking. A woman who wants to move away from their poor state turns unwilling victims of traffickers. This cannot be stopped, as long as there are patrons to such kind of trade.  The current state of treatment of women adds to the doubt of how globalization brings development to the third world countries.   Judgment At the beginning of the twenty-first century development geographers need to examine some of the striking contradictions in the nature of international institutions of governance, to think critically about the ways in which international development agencies invent, construct and name poor countries, places and peoples. Post-development perspective holds out the possibility of radically rethinking the power, place and spatiality of development in the contemporary world. In this sense there may be lessons to be learned from the coalitions that are being formed across cultural and political differences in and through a global protest caravan that is explicitly linking struggles at various spatial scales. Rethinking development means reconsidering the categories people have used in development geography, and unpacking the power relations that shape them. This question of the power of development and the unpacking of the power relations that are inscribed in development practices is a crucial one. In some ways polymorphous notions of the nature of power and power relations in development in different spaces and places are also needed (Power 2003).   The poor are seen to be trapped in the obsolete ways of the past, to be part of dysfunctional cultures or are simply pitiful beggars. In turn this comes back to the vision of development outlined in the imperial encounter, where non-western peoples were seen as trapped in the outdated coordinates of the past, as noble beggars with dysfunctional societies. The poor already have capital however, and the value of their savings can be much higher than is often assumed, but the problem is that this capital is seen to be held in defective forms. Thus people lack the capacity to represent their capital, the titles to their homes or land, the formality of recognition for their business enterprises, crops not deeds, businesses but not statuses of incorporation (Power 2003). Development should be a good thing but due to issues such as poverty, trafficking, and improper use of technology it seems that it has not achieved its goal. All can be blamed for the various issues mentioned. The media cannot blame the problem sorely on the government. Poverty, trafficking and improper use of technology are not really problems, they are symptoms of a much bigger problem. The problem is the society refusing to use development in a good manner. The society has been program to make use of development to gain an upper hand against another. The society needs to discuss and take some action on such issues. The society need to use the positive concepts of development to reduce poverty, eradicate human trafficking and manage the use of technology.   Conclusion Development, health care, globalization, technology can be used by society to improve their life. The different issues that the world face; can be easily fixed if there would be a careful use of principles of development, technology, health care and globalization.  Society needs to play their part in solving issues such as trafficking and the troubled youth. The governments must exert more effort to improve the lives of more people. The governments need to make sure that the policies they create are for the common good.   References Buse, K, Fustukian, S & Lee, K (eds.) 2002, Health policy in a globalizing world, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.   Crush, J (ed.) 1995, Power of development, Routledge, London.   Feenberg, A 2001, Transforming technology: A critical theory revisited, Oxford University Press, New York.   Hersh, J & Schmidt, J (eds.) 2000, Globalization and social change, Routledge, London.   Long, N 2001, Development sociology: Actor perspectives, Routledge, London.   Macdonald, TH (ed.) 2003, The social significance of health promotion, Routledge, New York.   McBride, S & Wiseman, J (eds.) 2000, Globalization and its discontents, Macmillan, Basingstoke, England.   Phillips, DR& Verhasselt, Y (eds.) 1994, Health and development, Routledge, New York.   Pitt, JC 2002, Thinking about technology: Foundations of the philosophy of technology, Seven Bridges Press, New York.   Power, M 2003, Rethinking development geographies, Routledge, New York.   Qin-Hilliard, D & Suárez-Orozco, MM (eds.) 2004, Globalization: Culture and education in the new millennium, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Health and Development

Description of reality Modernization theory visualizes development in terms of a progressive movement towards technologically and institu...

Critically discuss to what extent empowerment is a key issue in leading and managing the public health component of a health protection service.

Introduction While not as broad as a right to health, the right to health protection encompasses attention to the public health context of curative medicine. Thus a right to health protection goes beyond medical interventions to include preventive measures, such as the provision of potable water and improvement of environmental conditions. Sometimes the distinction is that the right to health care applies when one is sick and the right to health protection seeks to prevent the population from becoming sick. Clearly there are regions of the world in which the most valuable steps toward improvement of health are not medical services but public health protection (Chapman 1994).  Poor countries with limited resources would better improve health standards by investing scarce resources in clean water and environmental clean-up rather than by offering curative health care to a small fraction of the population. Moreover, even within an advanced industrialized country, health status will continue to deteriorate and health care costs will continue to escalate unless there is greater attention to promoting more favorable health conditions. Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude that a basic standard of health care cannot be achieved, even in a more affluent society, apart from a commitment to health protection (Chapman 1994).   The dual goals of universal coverage and cost containment cannot be achieved within a health care system that focuses on expensive curative medicine delivered by specialist physicians. Moreover, to promote the general health of the population as a whole, public policies need to place a priority on improving health conditions. Comprehensive health protection would include measures to improve air quality, significantly reduce exposure to toxic substances, assure greater workplace safety, discourage substance abuse, eliminate the availability of guns and weapons, and cleanup water supplies. Major investments in preventive health services, such as inoculations, early detection screening for disease, and regular checkups, would be another component of the strategy. One aspect of individual and collective responsibility is to have realistic and appropriate expectations regarding health care. The right to health care is not an unlimited and open-ended entitlement. A societal commitment to health protection and improvement does not necessitate a constantly increasing investment of the gross national product to health care at the expense of other goals. Nor does it imply that the goal is perfect or optimal health for each of its members. It most likely means that the standard for treatment of chronic illness be care rather than cure (Auhagen & Bierhoff 2001). Health protection is an issue in most countries not only because of its social implications but the expenses it entails. In health protection service there are varying components one of which is the public health component. The public health component needs to be managed well so that the goals of such component are achieved. To make sure that proper management strategies are used empowerment becomes involved. This paper intends to critically discuss to what extent empowerment is a key issue in leading and managing the public health component of a health protection service. Main body The role of public health is to assure the conditions for people to be healthy. These conditions include a variety of educational, economic, social, and environmental factors that are necessary for good health. Most definitions share the premise that the subject of public health is the health of populations and that this goal is reached by a generally high level of health throughout society, rather than the best possible health for a few (Gostin 2002). The field of public health is concerned with health promotion and disease prevention throughout society. Consequently, public health is interested in devising broad strategies to prevent or ameliorate injury and disease. Scholars and practitioners are conflicted about the reach or domain, of public health. Some prefer a narrow focus on the proximal risk factors for injury and disease. The role of public health agencies is to identify risks or harms and intervene to prevent or reduce them. This has been the traditional role of public health exercising discrete powers such as surveillance or screening and reporting, injury prevention and infectious disease control or vaccination, partner notification, and quarantine (Gostin 2002).   The expansive view of public health may well be justified by the populations. Around the world, health care is provided through many diverse public and private mechanisms. However, the responsibilities of public health are carried out in large measure through policies and programs promulgated, implemented, and enforced by, or with support from, the state. Therefore, this first linkage may be best explored by considering the impact of public health policies, programs, and practices on human rights. The three central functions of public health are: assessing health needs and problems; developing policies designed to address priority health issues; and assuring programs to implement strategic health goals (Evans 2001). Potential benefits to and burdens on human rights may occur in the pursuit of each of these major areas of public health responsibility. Members of the public health professions, practitioners and academicians alike, traditionally hold as their primary goals the development and dissemination of practices that will prevent disease and disability. Other aspects of public health, such as those relating to medical care access and costs, wax and wane in importance but remain secondary to disease prevention (Evans 2001). Assessing the needs of populations is a complex Endeavour. Purchasers have to develop methods alongside the traditional existing approaches of public health departments if they are to understand the totality of need. Moreover, as they are compelled by government guidance to involve users in this process they have to respond with creative methods to make this. Many public health problems, because of the social and behavioral factors which influence their origins and their effects, require much more flexible definitions of research, science and data (Popay & Williams1994).    Corporate discussions about health needs assessment and other public health issues involve ethical and political challenges to those who make the environment unhealthy and those who, in the past, have decided health care priorities. But they also carry with them an epistemological challenge to epidemiologists and other experts in public and environmental health, including managers. The current restructuring of community health services assumes and relies on the commitment of generalist community nurses to their nursing and to primary health care principles (Hancock 1999). Much of their contribution goes unrecognized and undervalued, due to the managerialist, output-focused objectives of current health policy, and is therefore not achieving its full potential. These findings point to a conclusion that economic policies aimed at reducing health costs, such as output-based funding, consumer co-payments for community health services, integration and compulsory competitive tendering are adding to the administrative workload of generalist community nurses and are diverting community health away from important aspects of public health care. As a consequence, such trends are counterproductive in terms of raising the health status of the community or improving health service delivery (Hancock 1999). Public health has many concerns; it deals with prevention rather than finding or providing cure. Public health focuses on a population and not on a certain individual.  Public health makes sure that plagues, viruses and diseases do not easily spread. It does this through stopping any spread of a health problem or careful security of basic necessities. Public health is usually funded by governments but some non government institutions provide some support or assistance. Public health like most concepts needs managing and leading. Leadership and management make sure that public health acts according to the demands of the environment. It makes sure that public health attains it current or new goals. Human service executives in both nonprofit and governmental organizations, like corporate executives, are usually active participants in the process of organizational policy formation as well as in policy implementation, even though the executive position is not formally defined as a policy-determining position. Most policy action issues in human service organizations come to a policy board or a legislative body as a recommendation from the executive, and with the executive as participant in the policy discussion (Austin 2002). Like the generalist public administrator, human service executives are responsible for the congruence of implementation to enacted policy, whether or not it is the policy that they have recommended. They are also responsible for organizational continuity, and for break-even financial performance. And, like the generalist public administrator, the human service executive has no direct personal economic stake in the financial performance of the organization. There is no single, universal definition of the characteristics of the human service executive position (Austin 2002).    Human service organizations producing similar products but in different environments may require different mixes of elements in the executive position. In many human service organizations, the employed staff includes members of one or more professional disciplines, an important factor in the decentralized pattern of interpersonal relationships to be dealt with. One of the important internal dynamics may be competition among professional groups for control over power positions within the organization and, therefore, for access to resources. Perceived distinctions between organizational employees and members of organized professions, or between service providers and support staff, may also be important factors that must be dealt with in the effective mobilization of personnel resources for service production. Even more critical may be perceived distinctions between employees and service users, including gender, ethnic, income status, or wellness distinctions that may constitute barriers to effective service co-production (Baum, Revenson & Singer 2001). In the human service organization, the quality of service often depends on the competence and commitment of individual service providers interacting with individual service users in a co-production process, rather than on the work group or work team. Indeed, decentralized individual responsibility, or professional autonomy, may be more important in motivation than elaborate group participation processes in an organization in which ultimate authority is, in reality, highly centralized. The executive has responsibility for making certain that there are established procedures for determining if the service production activities within the organization are consistent with the mission and goals of the organization, with applicable professional and regulatory standards, and with the requirements and expectations of funding and policy-making sources (Baum, Revenson &  Singer 2001).   Procedures for establishing financial accountability are particularly critical as human service organizations become increasingly dependent on multiple external funding sources, each with distinctive accountability requirements. Failure to deal with financial accountability effectively can lead to the dismissal of the executive and the collapse of the service organization. Given the complexities and uncertainties of professional production activities in human service organizations, executive performance in this sector is often viewed as being based primarily on the background of professional experience of the executive rather than on knowledge about more general management technologies, including financial management (Macdonald 1998). Executives in human service organizations, including social service executives and educational executives, are often selected on the basis of professional education and previous professional experience. That is, the executive is viewed as the ultimate professional supervisor. However, although such a background may be a necessary qualification for a human services executive, it is often not a sufficient qualification. Also important is an understanding of the technical requirements involved in the systematic organization of service production and organizational accountability, as well as the competencies involved in the other three sectors of executive performance. However, in many instances, the appointment of a senior professional practitioner to an executive position is not accompanied by any systematic orientation to the particular requirements of the position (Macdonald 1998). Like the management of business organizations, public health management requires the executive to know how to plan, budget finances, make use of appropriate strategies and solve problems.  An executive that manages the public health needs to make sure that aside from all those mentioned he/she has the right leadership skills and is empowered to decide on important issues. Under the empowerment model managers are required to provide the necessary conditions for people to flourish under their own energies. The focus is on cultivating a clear and guiding sense of individual worth, responsibility and commitment, as opposed to a dependency culture where the individual is unable to function without a manager directing proceedings. Of course broad direction still exists but the focus is on the individual becoming self directed. The manager’s role becomes that of coach (Thomas 1997).  The empowerment approach is an integrated method of social work practice driven by the unified personal: political construct and a commitment to the unleashing of human potentialities toward the end of building the beloved community, where justice is the rule. It is therefore a clinical and community-oriented approach encompassing holistic work with individuals, families, small groups, communities, and political systems/ Empowerment practice seeks to create community with clients in order to challenge with them the contradictions faced as vulnerable, hurt, or oppressed persons in the midst of an affluent and powerful society. Practitioners must develop effective interventions to deal with individual pain by taking social forces into account (Thomas 1997).   Empowerment practice requires critical thinking as it addresses individual, familial, and organizational resource problems, problems of asymmetrical exchange relationships, problems of powerlessness and inhibiting or hindering power structures or constraining power structures, and problems related to arbitrary social criteria or values. To help empower people must first learn to speak openly about power with clients and then engage in examination of power bases stemming from personal resources, articulation power, symbolic power, positional power, or authority, and formal and informal organizational power. Unfair social stratification and unfair distribution of goods constitute the most difficult question facing most societies (Lee 2001). Empowerment helps leaders capture the hearts of their followers. It makes followers feel strong, forceful, and capable. The key to leader success in empowerment is trust. Leaders need to trust followers before they will delegate significant responsibility to them. This trust is encouraged by full and constant communication between leader and follower regarding techniques and vision. For the leader empowerment is exercising control on the basis of results, not activity, events, or methods as managers do. Empowerment involves releasing the power in others through collaboration. It is endowing others with the power required to perform a given act and granting another the practical autonomy to step out and contribute directly to his or her job. It does not mean the leader gives away power. Rather it involves adding to the power of co-workers by development of their talents (Lee 2001).    Empowered people are more self-confident, self-controlled, and self motivated. The key is self. People are empowered when they individually accomplish collaborative and participative efforts with a leader and co-workers. These accomplishments appeal to the innate values of independence, self-reliance, and individualism. Empowerment is allowing people to self-actualize on the job via interesting and challenging job assignments. Empowerment involves the creation of job situations in which workers can be self-motivated instead of intimidated. It is not suppressing data about work. It is allowing room for co-workers to take risks without undue controls. In a real sense, it is helping workers find their niche, which would allow them to make full use of their strengths for their own benefit and for the organization. Leaders empower people for three reasons. First, empowered people work harder. They work more independently when they can make use of multiple talents, capacities, and creative selves. Jobs that are fuller, more demanding, and more complex and that require more of the total self are attractive to employees. It increases personal motivation when leaders assign tasks that include some worker control over work environment and discretion about when and how the work is done. Second, people who feel their leaders have concern for their development and maturation as a human being are more committed to that leader. They will follow a leader whom they feel shows concern for them apart from what they can do for the organization. Third, empowered, committed people are more creative and innovative in their work. They produce new ways to do work that challenge past methods (Weissberg 1999).    Empowered people focus on their proven capacities and those of their co-workers. They are more open to change, more supportive of change, and more involved in determining the direction of changes made in the organization/The problem with empowerment is that it is powerful. Giving power to workers allows them to be more productive in group goal accomplishment. This power can also be used to move the organization away from desired goals. Also, not everyone wants, or is prepared to, receive power and use it wisely or effectively. Sometimes, people do not or cannot exert power because they fear it. There are physical, psychological, and sociological system barriers to empowerment that leaders often ignore in their rush to create a trust culture based on worker empowerment. These factors sometimes play out in dysfunctional ways in organizational relationships. Despite the leader’s best efforts, characteristics of the people worked with or the character of the current culture can sometimes dissipate collective energy. This can cause the leader’s explicit goals to become fuzzy and unclear and direct the work effort toward harmful, not helpful, activity (Fairholm 1994). Empowerment is making others act through the use of a good style of leadership. Empowerment is an important aspect of leading/managing the public health component of a health protection service. Leadership/management are the ones that will guide the public health component to achieve its goals, empowerment will be the driving force so that there would be movement. Empowerment doesn’t necessarily mean that the goals will be achieved but it will initiate the movement to achieve the goals. Empowerment may cause some individuals in the public health component to lose their focus; good leadership styles will solve such issue.  Empowerment without good management cannot help the public health component reach its goals. On the other hand if leaders are not empowered they cannot initiate acts that will lead to the achievement of pubic health component’s goals.   References Auhagen, A & Bierhoff, H (eds.) 2001, Responsibility: The many faces of a social phenomenon, Routledge, London.   Austin, DM 2002, Human services management: Organizational leadership in social work practice, Columbia University Press, New York.   Baum, A, Revenson, TA & Singer, JE 2001, Handbook of health psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.   Chapman, AR (ed.) 1994, Health care reform: A human rights approach, Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.   Evans, T (ed.) 2001, Challenging inequities in health: From ethics to action, Oxford University Press, New York.   Fairholm, GW 1994, Leadership and the culture of trust, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.   Gostin, LO (ed.) 2002, Public health law and ethics: A reader, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.   Hancock, L (ed.) 1999, Health policy in the market state, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W.   Lee, JA 2001, The empowerment approach to social work practice: Building the beloved community, Columbia University Press, New York.   Macdonald, TH 1998, Rethinking health promotion: A global approach, Routledge, London.   Popay, J & Williams, G (eds.) 1994, Researching the people’s health, Routledge, New York   Thomas, M 1997, Mastering people management: Build a successful team motivate, empower and lead people, Thorogood, London.   Weissberg, R 1999, The politics of empowerment, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Critically discuss to what extent empowerment is a key issue in leading and managing the public health component of a health protection service.

Introduction While not as broad as a right to health, the right to health protection encompasses attention to the public health context o...

THE NEED FOR SAFE CHILD CARE

THE NEED FOR SAFE CHILD CARE   Child care subsidies are an important policy instrument to facilitate the transition of welfare recipients into employment. Indeed, several studies show that the cost of child care is an important constraint to helping disadvantaged mothers ﬁnd employment (Anderson & Levine, 2000; Blau & Robins, 1988; Blau & Tekin, 2007; Han & Waldfogel, 2001; Kimmel, 1998; Tekin, 2005, 2007). As a result, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) reorganized the patchwork child care subsidy system. In particular, Congress consolidated several preexisting subsidy programs into a single block grant, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Federal and state expenditures for child care assistance increased substantially, and states were given greater authority over program design and administration. In 2005, states spent approximately .4 billion on child care subsidies and served 1.7 million children in an average month (Child Care Bureau, 2005a). A sizable body of research examines the impact of child care subsidy receipt on mothers’ employment and child care decisions (e.g., Blau & Tekin, 2007; Herbst, 2008b; Meyers, Heintze, & Wolf, 2002; Tekin, 2005, 2007). Findings from these studies indicate that subsidies are effective in moving single mothers into paid employment and shifting children from informal child care settings into the formal market. However, researchers have neglected the question of whether child care subsidies have implications for child development. The relevance of this issue is clear, given that expenditure on and recipients of child care subsidies exceed other early childhood intervention programs. Furthermore, research shows that developmental experiences during the ﬁrst few years of a child’s life have lasting effects on cognitive and behavioral well-being (Heckman & Materov, 2004; Le, Miller, Heath, & Martin, 2005; Lynch, 2004). Since most child care subsidies are used to purchase center-based care—which has been found to promote child development in some studies—it is commonly assumed that subsidies should also have positive effects on wellbeing. However, it is unclear a priori whether subsidies are beneﬁcial or detrimental to child outcomes. There are three primary channels through which child care assistance policies can inﬂuence child outcomes. First, mothers must be employed to be eligible for a subsidy, and recent evidence suggests that early maternal employment is negatively associated with child development (Bernal, 2008; BrooksGunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2002; James-Burdumy, 2005; Liu, Mroz, & Van der Klaauw, 2003; Ruhm, 2004). Second, subsidies create incentives to purchase nonparental child care. The evidence here is mixed, with some studies ﬁnding positive effects for child care attendance (Loeb, Fuller, Kagan, & Carrol, 2004; NICHD, 2003a, 2003b) and others ﬁnding insigniﬁcant or negative effects (Baydar & BrooksGunn, 1991; Bernal & Keane, 2008; Desai, Chase-Lansdale, & Robert, 1989). There is more agreement, however, that high-quality center-based care has positive effects on cognitive development, particularly for low-income children (Hill, Waldfogel, & Brooks-Gunn, 2002; NICHD & Duncan, 2003; Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001). Finally, child care subsidies free up income for parents to spend on private consumption and goods that enhance child quality. The extent to which additional income is spent on private consumption versus child quality depends on the relative size of the income elasticities. This relationship is further complicated by the presence of several design features embedded in the CCDF that have implications for child care quality. Arguably the most important design feature is the principle of “parental choice,” in which parents are free to use subsidies to purchase virtually any legally operating child care provider, including those operating outside states’ regulatory regimes. Furthermore, conditioning eligibility for subsidies on employment and income creates challenges for maintaining stable child care arrangements. In particular, if changes in employment and income status are related to lapses in subsidy receipt, such instability could undermine child well-being by severing productive child-teacher relationships and exposing children to comparatively low-quality care during unsubsidized periods. States’ reimbursement rates—or the maximum amount a state agency pays a given provider—can also inﬂuence quality. Reimbursements are usually below the federally recommended level, limiting families’ access to high-quality care. This may also reduce incentives for providers to make important quality enhancements. In general, the aim of current subsidy policy is to support employment among low-income families, while placing few restrictions on child care quality (Gormley, 2007).   References   Anderson, P., Butcher, K., & Levine, P. (2003). Maternal employment and overweight children. Journal of Health Economics, 22, 477–504. Blau, D., & Robins, P. (1988). Child care costs and family labor supply. Review of Economics and Statistics, 70, 374–381. Blau, D., & Tekin, E. (2007). The determinants and consequences of child care subsidies for single mothers in the USA. Journal of Population Economics, 20, 719–741. Blau, F., & Grossberg, A. (1992). Maternal labor supply and children’s cognitive development. Review of Economics and Statistics, 74, 474–481. Han, W., & Waldfogel, J. (2001). Child care costs and women’s employment: A comparison of single and married mothers with pre-school age children. Social Science Quarterly, 82, 552–568. Han, W., Waldfogel, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2001). The effects of early maternal employment on later cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 336–354. Meyers, M., Heintze, T., & Wolf, D. (2002). Child care subsidies and the employment of welfare recipients. Demography, 39, 165–180. Meyers, M., Peck, L., Davis, E., Collins, A., Kreader, J. L., Georges, A., et al. (2002). The dynamics of child care subsidy use: A collaborative study of ﬁve states. New York: National Center on Children in Poverty, Columbia University. Tekin, E. (2005). Child care subsidy receipt, employment, and child care choices of single mothers. Economics Letters, 89, 1–6. Tekin, E. (2007). Single mothers working at night: Standard work, child care subsidies, and implications for welfare reform. Economic Inquiry, 45, 233–250. 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THE NEED FOR SAFE CHILD CARE

THE NEED FOR SAFE CHILD CARE Child care subsidies are an important policy instrument to facilitate the transition of welfare recipie...

EXPLORING CAREGIVERS PERSPECTIVE ON THE CAUSES AND PERCEIVE PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR DRUG USE AMONG YOUTH

EXPLORING CAREGIVERS PERSPECTIVE ON THE CAUSES AND PERCEIVE PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR DRUG USE AMONG YOUTH         Caregiver as well as parents and guardians is a tough job they will need to set aside time for their patients or children to be able to deal with them according to their needs. While the attention they are going to give without something much in return is a noble profession.         Do you love your children or patients? Most of us would immediately say “YES” without even thinking. But no matter how we do love them there are still moments when we may feel so far from our children or patients even they are near.  So what seems to be the problem?  Where did I go wrong?   Why did my children have been involved into drug addiction? If these are some of the questions bothering you, then you need to establish a good plan and perspective to open up to your children.       You should know that growing children in adolescence stage they explore and wander to satisfy their curiosity. When they found it in other places rather than your home, then the problem starts to show up. By the time they enter school and socialize, peer pressure gives them more room to co create their character. They may idolize and do what they see around them in their society or even at home.        Television, Internet, magazines and other forms of media makes them perceive even more that everything they see is right. So they will do it as if it’s a natural thing.       Because research shows that the primary reason why children go into drugs is the lack of knowledge about it. Teens that learn about the risk of drug from their parents or guardian are less likely to get involve into it.        We hope that the following guide below will give them additional insights for Parents, Guardians and Caregivers to further strengthen their relationship especially among the adolescence and children to reach and probably get them away into drugs.    1. Communicate with your children/patient. It’s the only way to open up, you need not brag down to silly questions that will push them to draw back away from you. Let them talk their why they get involved into drugs, listen up attentively. Sometimes children rebels against us simply to get our attention. Get into the habit of talking to them if you have the opportunity and let them express their feelings. Usually a victim never wants to talk they are simply withdrawn from emotional stress. 2. Get involve in their activity/Socialize. In school or at home learn to play with them or help them do their homework etc sing with them. Try to find time to be with them, this way they will find peace in their heart that they are important.   3. Make rules at home. Teach them that these drugs are illegal and may cost insanity and may leave them a miserably life if involve. So drugs are not for your family etc. 4. Be a role model. You cannot give what you do not have. you need to walk your talk so children understands that you are serious about it. Learn to obey your own rules. This way your children will follow you not because of your words but because of your action. 5. Teach them to choose their peers. Usually a child who been into doesn’t involve too many friends. By becoming a role model at home, you teach children to choose their friends wisely. And so when they go out they have a real knowledge of a person who can be a good friend. 6. Monitor their activities. Or better yet let them engage in a healthy atmosphere such as sports, church activities, arts, literature and stuff like these one. This way you also give them the opportunity to develop their hidden potentials and build their confidence.       So whether you’re a caregiver or a parent, you will understand that the healing process requires genuine love and attention on your part. With proper guidance and motivation, a child who already been involved into drug addiction will find time to heal sooner than you may realize. Hopefully the love and care that you have given will bring positive results for your patients or children as they grow old, they will be forever thankful for you for making a difference into their lives.                                             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

EXPLORING CAREGIVERS PERSPECTIVE ON THE CAUSES AND PERCEIVE PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR DRUG USE AMONG YOUTH

EXPLORING CAREGIVERS PERSPECTIVE ON THE CAUSES AND PERCEIVE PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR DRUG USE AMONG YOUTH Caregiver as well a...

Impact of Advances in Medical Technology on Patient Care

Impact of Advances in Medical Technology on Patient Care   Nowadays, various medical interventions are widespread worldwide in order for the medical personnel to provide excellent patient care as well as to be able extend the life of their patients. In this connection, medical technology is the use of a medical device or invention to extend the life of patients, relieve pain and reduce risk of disease.  And, some  illustrations of medical technology is the medical and surgical procedures, medications, medical devices and diagnostic tests that cannot be performed by the medical people without the use of medical technology. On the other hand, patient care is the process of preventing, treating and managing patients’ illnesses; as well as the procedure of preserving the physical and mental well-being of the patients through services offered by the medical technology.(http://www.ehow.com/about_4672066_medical-technology.html) Furthermore, the use of medical technologies on patient care has many advantages.  These medical procedures have been started in the nineteenth century with the invention of sphygmomanometer which was invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch and was used to measure blood pressure.   On the other hand, the pyrometer was invented by John Hutchinson in 1846 and was used to measure the vital capacity of the lungs.  Thereafter, the whole world has witnessed a lot of growth in the use of medical technologies for patient care and treatment. And, one primary factor which is responsible for the development and growth of medical technology is the emergence of science and engineering with medicine. The invention of the devices such as X-ray, Computed Tomography (CT) scans or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is greatly contributed by the field of engineering and physics for medical applications.   Additionally, advanced technologies are able to treat different kinds of cancer through therapies and screening tests like fecal occult blood test for colorectal cancer, and through electronic support systems such as telemedicine and electronic medical records for fast track record of the patients in the hospitals.  As far as medical technologies are concerned, they function as to diagnose diseases through X-rays, CT scans or MRI. In the same way, they also provide treatment of various diseases.  For cancer, there is chemotherapy; there is also for the prevention of illnesses by immunization system. In similar token, medical technologies provide screening for diseases as well as for rehabilitation, automation and reducing   human errors through computerized order physician entry system. Above all, medical technologies help tremendously in improving the quality of life of the patients for instance, providing artificial legs and arms for some patients; so as to provide many medical benefits to many patients. (http://www.vatechnologies.com/qstimAdvances.htm) Subsequently, the effects of the invention of medical technologies caused United States to invest $ 130 billion yearly on the quest for new medical technologies and upgraded medical strategies and interventions. The pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries contributed about half of the cost of research and development for new medical technologies. The negative effect of medical technologies led the high cost of research and development for new drugs and has caused people to spend   much higher for their medical expenditures.  It is obvious that medical technology is partly responsible for the rising cost of health care. In the United States, the total cost of health care increases with an annual rate of roughly 10 percent and currently accounts for 18 20 percent of GDP. It is estimated that medical technology is responsible for at least half of the increase in medical costs.  Therefore, it is otherwise important to evaluate the cost effectiveness of a new medical technology. Such analysis will allow health care providers to make an informed decision about which appropriate and affordable medications or procedures should be paid for by the patients.  Consequently, in evaluating the impact of the new medical technologies is somewhat complicated in the process.    Based on the research made, the costs and benefits of the innovative medical technology improve a lot the health conditions of the patients.  Nevertheless, it also caused the patients to be financially drained due to expensive cost of medical procedures and the medical treatments and medicines.  This scenario is tolerable for those patients who are well off; but how about those patients who can not afford to pay for these expensive medical procedures in order to extend their lives?  Therefore public health insurance must be implemented worldwide for those people who are in the medium or low income bracket.  This will greatly help those people when the time comes that they will get sick, their health insurance will provide them a better   access to new medical technologies in order them to gain premium health care and medications. (http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm030807oth.cfm) References: http://www.ehow.com/about_4672066_medical-technology.html http://www.vatechnologies.com/qstimAdvances.htm  http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm030807oth.cfm     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Impact of Advances in Medical Technology on Patient Care

Impact of Advances in Medical Technology on Patient Care Nowadays, various medical interventions are widespread worldwide in order fo...

Knowledge, Attitude and Utilization of Aseptic Technique by Health Workers

Knowledge, Attitude and Utilization of Aseptic Technique by Health Workers   Aseptic technique is a process performed under sterile conditions most commonly used  in medical, laboratory and hospital operation settings. Its purpose is to minimize  patients’ exposure to hospital micro-organisms as much as possible and prevent their contamination of wounds and other susceptible sites that could lead to infection. All medical equipment and fluids are sterilized by the scrub nurses and surgical technologists before medical procedures to ensure sterility in the clinical setting.[1]   Considerable morbidity and mortality can result if aseptic techniques are poorly adhered to. Health care facilities should establish policy and procedures on aseptic techniques and health workers performing them should be trained and should demonstrate competency.[2]   Since the patient is the most common source of pathogens that cause infections in the surgical site, the latter should be cleansed thoroughly before clinical operation. Sterile surgical fields with drapes should be created to maintain asepsis in the operating room or for other invasive processes.[3]   Medical equipment and supplies should be sterilized by chemical treatment, radiation, gas or heat. In the sterile field, all items must be sterile and only scrubbed personnel must be allowed into it. Clinical areas outside of the operating room should observe medical aseptic practices to help avoid nosocomial infections. All personnel in a multidisciplinary setting must constantly monitor their actions, those of others and the overall status of the field to prevent possible breaks in sterility techniques.[4] Infection control programs in medical centers have been proven to reduce infection rates. Its components include conducting control procedures, trained infection control physician and nurse and a monitoring system of infection rates for clinical care staff.[5] The first line of defense for daily infection control application belong to the clinical care staff and other health care workers.[6]   Simple hand washing using antiseptic hand soaps and alcohol-based hand rubs have been proven to reduce bacterial hand contamination in health workers in hospital settings, which in turn will minimize patient infections. The inconsistency of this mandatory practice in resource-poor areas of the world, such as in Pakistan, continues to be a challenge. Poor practice of hand hygiene and inadequate attention to basic infection-control measures have been observed in hospitals lacking in nursing personnel and have patient overcrowding. Health workers should also properly use personal protective equipment including gloves, gowns and face mask to minimize mutual organism transmission between patient and health care worker.[7]   Health workers are commonly highly educated and knowledgeable in aseptic techniques, but studies have shown that they do not apply proper practice consistently.[8] Reasons given for this inconsistency include perceived time constraints, inconvenience, and presumption of the patient not being infected. Consistency is found to be directly proportional to the years of health care experience.[9]   There is a need for periodic evaluation of infection control practices to encourage health workers to report adverse events that can be prevented in the future, to hold them responsible for their daily practices and to institute improvements in the system.[10] There is also a need for regular environmental cleaning and disinfection of the clinical setting by a team of surgical and environmental services personnel to reduce the dust, organic debris and microbial load that accumulates there.[11]   		 		 		 		[1] “Aseptic Technique”, 		Wikipedia, 15 February 2011, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aseptic_technique> 		[accessed 29 April 2011] 		 		 		 		[2] “Aseptic Techniques”, 		Scribd., 2011, <http://www.scribd.com/doc/35140496/Aseptic-Techniques> 		[accessed 29 April 2011]            		 		 		 		[3] “Aseptic Technique”, Scribd, 		2011, <http://www.scribd.com/doc/47586365/Aseptic-technique> 		[accessed 29 April 2011] 		 		 		 		[4] ibid 		 		 		 		[5] Amy S. Collins, “Chapter 41 		Preventing Health Care-Associated Infections”, Bookshelf, 2006 		<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2683/>  [accessed 29 April 2011] 		 		 		 		[6] ibid 		 		 		 		[7] ibid 		 		 		 		[8] ibid 		 		 		 		[9] ibid 		 		 		 		[10] ibid 		 		 		 		[11] Kelly M. Pyrek, “Breaches in 		the OR: The Perioperative and Infection Prevention Challenge”, 		Infection Control Today, 10 March 2011, <http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/articles/2011/03/breaches-and-best-practices-in-the-or.aspx> 		 [accessed 29 April 2011] Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Knowledge, Attitude and Utilization of Aseptic Technique by Health Workers

Knowledge, Attitude and Utilization of Aseptic Technique by Health Workers Aseptic technique is a process performed under sterile con...