Community Health Risks
Glendale has seen an increase in homelessness and a shortage of shelters in recent years. Poverty leads to the emergence of various economic and psychological risk factors. Low-income populations experience a lack of money to fully meet the basic needs for food, housing, clothing, and quality medical care. Life in poverty often causes severe stress, which negatively impacts health. It increases the probability of developing various diseases and the risk of premature death.
Resources
Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center and the Glendale Healthier Community Coalition are involved in community health research in the city. Their participation can complete the community assessment and make it more statistically informative. Since other non-profit hospitals are also required to conduct a community health needs assessment every three years, their data can also be used to analyze tendencies. An analysis of this kind of data revealed that poverty and homelessness are key health needs in Glendale (Adventist Health Glendale, 2019). Mental health and substance use ranked second, with access to health care in third place.
Community Strengths
Glendale’s strengths include the high quality of medical services and infrastructure. In addition, strong municipal leaders are a definite plus since they can use their goodwill to initiate assistance programs. Glendale has sex education classes in schools, and there is communication between residents and city leaders. The city is actively implementing programs to prevent the spread of smoking addiction and is also introducing projects to combat obesity.
Community Concerns
The rapid rise of the obesity epidemic in Glendale is related to the increased availability of food and decreased opportunities for physical activity. What is more, the cheapest foods have traditionally been those that are high in fats and sugars. Glendale is characterized by problems with drug use; alcohol consumption is also a threat to the deteriorating health of residents (Seidman, 2018). In addition, poverty increases the likelihood of substance abuse and may also increase the risk of mental illness. These are the main challenges to the health of Glendale residents.
Potential Barriers to Implementing Community Health Plans
Underinsurance, a complete lack of health insurance, and difficulty finding the right doctor are key barriers to implementing health programs. For example, Medicare insurance pays for most, but not all, of the cost of health care services and products. Those who want it can buy a Medicare supplement from a private insurance company to cover other costs. However, many residents do not have enough savings for this.
Less affluent residents regularly face problems in accessing quality health care. For example, the homeless population disproportionately lives with untreated mental health disorders. There is a need to address poverty from a health care perspective, as it poses numerous health risks (Los Angeles County, 2018). It can be assumed that the poor people of Glendale have to deal with distortions in self-perception sleep problems, and there are disturbances in terms of nutritional-metabolic patterns.
Ways of Addressing These Barriers
When it comes to finding the right doctor, Adventist Health offers a hotline for an in-depth consultation. There are also many websites where one can find reviews of various doctors and clinics. Funding for subspecialty training programs may also be a solution if there are not enough subspecialties in Glendale. To address the issue of paying for therapy if it is not covered by insurance, there should be non-profit options for residents with low incomes.
Measures must be taken to actively support public initiatives to ensure access to free care in health care institutions. It is also important to stimulate the development of interaction algorithms with insurance organizations and the study of appeals to the court of citizens who have not received free care of adequate quality. In addition to the above, it would be advisable to work with the patient community and other public organizations aimed at explaining to patients their rights.
References
Adventist Health Glendale. 2019 Community health needs assessment. Web.
Los Angeles County. (2018). City and community health policies. Web.
Seidman, L. (2018). Homelessness, mental health top Glendale health concerns, summit reveals. Los Angeles Times. Web.