California Health Department Review

Public Health

A review on the state health department in California community revealed some health concerns. Diabetes seems to be the most prevalent and has affected an estimated one-fifth of the California community. It has been found to be in the top five leading causes of death in the community of California. Diabetes has a direct link with obesity. Diagnosis of diabetes is a clear indication of unhealthy life-style depicted by the victims.  Diabetes victims hospitalized has higher adult count compared to children head count.  In the Covenant House California—Los Angeles, more males have evidently been discharged from the health sectors for diabetes related health risks than females. Victims of diabetes are found to be associated with physical inactivity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, unhealthy eating, and high cholesterol among others.

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Mental health:Research has found it that more than 90 per-cent of the suicidal victims in the California community have mental health disorders. Mental disorders are very common with the adults in the California community(California Department of Mental Health, 2010). This was further studied among the races that exist within the California community; the blacks reported the most cases of mental health disorders, followed by the whites, then the Latinos and finally the Asians(Williams, 2009).

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Hypertension: Hypertension is a condition mostly indicated by high blood pressure. In the California community, this health concern affects one out of every three people. If this health concern is left unchecked, it might possibly lead to the fatal heart or kidney failure, heart attack, blindness among others.  This condition is much associated with smoking, excessive drinking, physical inactivity, stroke among other health disorders. It has been noted that poor life-style has great contribution to hypertension. There is evidently lack of preventing care available to the potential victims thereby attributing to the health hazards.

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There are a number of programs that have so far been established in California community- Los Angeles that  are all geared towards improving health in the community.  However, among the prioritized health concerns, there are the drivers behind the health concerns. The drivers like poverty as well as behavior are found to be very much linked to many health problems.

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There are many drivers such as unemployment, income, homelessness, alcohol and substance abuse, dental care access among others. There is therefore a need to come up with prevention and intervention programs that would to some degree address some of the drives. Most of the health concerns are seen to have a long root from lack of early prevention and care against the health risks.

Early Intervention (EI) program: As commonly known, prevention is better than cure, the Early Intervention  program is the California’s major prevention program that  the people depends on for the provision of services geared towards improving the lives of the toddlers with disabilities and their families. By so doing, the children are prevented from being exposed to such health factors as the mental health in the adult stages, the hypertension disorders that are associated with the high blood pressure among others.

The 2014-15 California budget contains all the necessary inclusions that would shift the responsibility for paying provider claims from the California County to a whole community fiscal intermediary. It would therefore transfer the authority for approving Early Interventionpersonnel from local health departments to the state department of health. In addition, it would as well eliminate the 2 percent across-the-board reduction on the program payments.

A part from just providing the early intervention to children, this program also has the duty of improving the educational services for the youth who reside in the office of mental health hospitals (OMH). The California community came up with a pilot program that aimed at providing all the students who reside in office of mental health hospitals a better and advanced education and training that closely relates with the therapy services and curriculum that they are subjected to in their home district schools. This program in California- Los Angeles has independently made much effort in reducing the occurrences of some of the major health issues in adults in the community. The seriousness of the health concerns are thus impeded by the efforts made by this program.

The E.I program has a sample program budget that necessitates its operations within the California community. The budget facilitates the evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the program. In order to fully provide the health services to the California community, finance is a necessity.

The program therefore has a budget that outlines all the indirect and the direct costs relevant for the operations of the program. The budget is subjected to an annual revision.

categoryitemsubtotalTotal cost
Wages/benefitspublic awareness$30,000$30,000
Health materialsLog books$ 45, 000$ 45,000
Health trainingFor the current year$32000$320,000
Equipmentpublicity$546,000$546,000
IncentivesGift-cards etc$3,000$3,000
MiscellaneousParties, team$7,000$7,000
Total  $951,000
      

The above are the basic costs the early intervention program incurs when performing its operations thereby addressing the major health concerns.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED PROGRAM

Strengths

The program has other smaller sub-braches that facilitate quick access by the public to the relevant health services and assistance. The smaller sub-branches ensures that most children if not all get access to the required health services and procedures.

The early intervention program in carlifornia community makes it easy for the aversion of the future major serious health problems.  For example when a child with disability is attended to, he or she shall acquire the life skills that would allow him/her o adapt to the normal life without much stress and strain that would otherwise lead to mental health problems.

It is an example of an effective program in the community with effective role models and lastly has effective models and personnel in the staff,

Weaknesses

Firstly, everyone is not reached through this program. Only a limited number of individuals are. The program also has a limited public access to the technology making their services not as efficient as other programs in the state.It in turn leads to an overall limited rural access due to transportation issues.

Not only that, the data monitoring system is limited and confined leading to an inefficiency. This way, not all the health concerns are attended to like the hypertension and likewise, not all the health concerns require early intervention done in children. Some require awareness of the healthy feeding habits.Inadequate public awareness about the program and their end goals and objectives are also some of the additional shortcomings.

Opportunities

Far from the weaknesses, the E.I educate through technology. The technology systems can be available if properly funded.The E.I can possibly work with the legislators. In this way they can educate legislators about the relevance of early attendance to the children’s as well as adults’ needs.They also can educate parents and the public as a whole about the program’s objectives which will develop full coalitions purposely to coordinate the program’s services to the public and expand the scope of attending to all the health concerns and disorders.

Threats

Some threats also face the California healthcare program. The first one is lack of adequate finance resources to run all the required activities. It is further worsened by inadequate trained personnel willing to work at the prevailing wage-rates. On top of that, frequent time constraints for teaching the patients, parents and the public comes with consequences of illiteracy of some of the parents and individuals from the rural areas. However, it is not all blamed on the program but on the ignorance by the public to acknowledge the intervention strategies which is also prevalent. It comes along with Personal bias and attitudes of the public towards the efforts made by the program.

In summary, the Early Intervention program therefore has higher chances of strengthening their weak areas by pursuing the available stated opportunities.

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