Introduction
Population, health and Environment approach (PHE) to the communities has undoubtedly lead to global development. PHE contributes to the overall improvement of Parental and child health, enabling individuals to prioritize on other concerns like resource management and conservation. Through PHE there is improved access to Family Planning due to increased availability of information and their services in rural areas which are often out of reach of conventional health services. Additionally, PHE lay emphasis on behavioral change, communication and making healthier choices. These enables people to make healthier choices for themselves as well as their families. PHE projects also address environmental concerns by prioritizing on local needs; creating awareness as a result. The awareness leads to increased community support in carrying out its activities. PHE projects tend to focus on youth engagement in leadership, knowledge, empowerment and improvement of Aid resilience enabling communities to adapt to crises and shocks as well as cost effectiveness in terms of implementation and communal engagement. (P. Patterson, & Gaith, 2016)
Some of the crucial program considerations PHE faces are communications and advocacy; monitoring and evaluations; cross-industry partnerships and scalability. This makes efficient monitoring and evaluation crucial for illustrating evidences supporting PHE’s ability to impact multiple developmental goals. PHE progressively recognizes the benefit of communication and advocacy both of which are instrumental to the enhancement of its programs and projects. A large number of PHE projects tend to remain communally based with limited reproduction. Therefore, implementers are looking to scale and standardization to reach greater audiences. Scaling involves focusing on the organization, planning and management, advocacy and policy work. In the event that expansion, harmonization and replication are part of the project goals, projects should plan and prioritize on scaling from the get go. Partnerships spanning multiple areas of competence bring additional value to PHE projects with respect to project design and implementation, monitoring, evaluation and data collection. (P. Patterson, & Gaith, 2016)
The PHE community acknowledges numerous ways of advancement of the field and gaining more support for the unified support. One crucial method is via the expanded application of communications and advocacy, both of which are crucial for PHE to gain backing from different sectors and new stakeholders. Most PHE programs are actualized at communal level, rendering mobilization a crucial component of the PHE process. Advocacy fits naturally with communal mobilization and being used increasingly in addition to the program design by PHE implementers. Organizations dealing in PHE can collude with stakeholders to embolden policymakers set locally and national advancement priorities; which demonstrate the benefit of assimilating family planning with environmental conservation in addition to non-health related sectors. Project Implementers, community representatives and other actors can change the policy landscape enabling policymakers understand the value in the PHE approach, thereby becoming PHE advocates themselves. Advocacy also plays a role in linking PHE programs on community level to national progress towards achievement of global targets notably Sustainable Development Goals (SDE)
References
Patterson,, K., & Gaith,, S. (2016). Population, Health, and Environment | Global Health eLearning Center. Globalhealthlearning.org. Retrieved 15 April 2018, from https://globalhealthlearning.org/course/population-health-and-environment
Population, Health, & Environment Programs - Speak Out. (2018). Population Speak Out. Retrieved 15 April 2018, from https://populationspeakout.org/solutions/population-health-environment-programs-2/
