School-Based Cycling Initiative For Health Promotion Essay.

On completing this course successfully you will be able to:

1. explain the need for health promotion initiatives in practice using evidence from research

2. apply and critically evaluate a variety of approaches and frameworks used in the delivery of promote health

3. encompass wider ethical, philosophical and cultural issues in the implementation of health promotion

4. devise an implementation plan for health promotion in a community setting

Sedentary lifestyle is pivot for decrement in the quality of health among school children. Children in such tender age are suffering from various maladies and illness. As per Who, physical inactivity is one of the prevailing reasons among children that leads to lifestyle related maladies and illness among them. Some of the reasons for such physical inactivity are due to increment in study pressure, lack of zeal towards physical activity among children, no support by parents for instillation towards physical activity and others (Tremblay et al. 2014).

One of the prevailing parental practices of drop and take away their children to and from school is one of the biggest factors contributing to the physical inactivity among children. According to the research conducted by Easton and Ferrari (2015), due to increase in population and competent establishment of community, the average travelling stretch has increased tremendously. This stretch has also been analysed between home and school. Availability of motor cars and increment in the purchasing power parity of individuals are reasons for the increment in stretch.  This has led to a continual practice of travelling the children to and from the school through motor cars. Besides this, increment in the study pressure and continuous mental pressure to excel has inhibited the children to undertake sports and play outside house (Easton and Ferrari 2015).

Different healthcare promotion theories and frameworks have been formulated with the continual research to exert effective implementation of strategies in order to ameliorate the degrading impacts. For the analysis of this research, the model of health promotion by Beattie has been chosen that undertake thorough analysis based on existing and past promotion strategies and formulates different measures for the enhancement in the future practices. Besides this, Beattie framework also determines the specific role of different healthcare professionals in the promotion activity. This framework is divided into four quadrants determining the effective role and activities to be undertaken by authorities in each quadrant (Rushnell and Beattie 2016). 

The four quadrants are health persuasion, community development, personal counselling and legislative action. These quadrants formulate and evaluate different procedure for the promotion of health by healthcare professionals, personal counselling, governing bodies and community development. Governing or legislative bodies along with healthcare professionals undertakes the formulation, implementation and regulation of policies and procedures required for the promotion and persuasion of a healthcare plan. The health persuasion quadrant undertakes the restoration of underdeveloped and insufficient health practices and behaviours. Additionally, the legislative rules and regulations contribute to the protection of the rights of vulnerable people further regulating the formulation of updated practices. In addition to this, personal counselling along with community development undertakes one on one approach for the spread of awareness, empowerment in terms of skill, knowledge and understanding among targeted public. Personal counselling targets a single person at a time in order to instil the awareness while community development undertakes a bigger picture and analyzes the development procedure among groups usually at a larger scale (Thompson 2014).

Answers

The school based cycling activity for the instillation of quality health management will be conducted in the target school of West Thamesmead with a view of incorporating effective cycling among their daily routine in order to ameliorate the prevailing issue of physical inactivity by September, 2018. This analysis shall be conducted with the help of sample cycling initiative to be conducted among 10 participating and 10 non-participating children within the age group 10 to 15 years in order to predetermine and analyse the impact of full scale project. Additionally, after the conduction of sample initiative, a 90 days awareness initiative will be implemented in accordance with the consent of the associated family and teachers to the participants. Furthermore, for the implementation of the awareness programs and conduction of the cycling strategy, partnership will be established between the bike manufacturers and the education department of Royal borough of Greenwich. Additionally, both qualitative and quantitative analysis will be undertaken in accordance with the Beattie model of health promotion plan with the help of effective initiative practices (Adelhak, Grostick and Hanken 2014).

For the promotion of cycling activity in the target school of West Thamesmead, Health persuasion of the Beattie framework will be the most probable quadrant in which the formulated cycling strategy fits in. The mode of the intervention will be authoritative and targeting the healthy lifestyle among the individuals. This quadrant undertakes top-down approach in which the primacy will be predetermined by the healthcare professionals and policy regulators allowing the individuals to alter their existing behaviours and practices to administer a healthy lifestyle (Munson and Jaccard 2016).

Health persuasion quadrant of the framework by Beattie determines the analyses and formulation of the practices based on the existing and paternalistic thinking of the decision makers. The main aim of this quadrant will undertake the alteration of thoughts and thinking of the individuals towards the prevailing issue of degrading lifestyle on the basis of evidence-based practices. The persuasion will occur by understanding the behaviour of the individuals towards certain issue as in this case it is physical inactivity among children. This quadrant will undertake the effective implementation and regulation of the predetermined objectives among school children of the target schools of Thamesmead by understanding the behaviour of children, associated family and teachers persuading them to  instil effective practices among children with optimal consultation, understanding them the importance of physical activity and determining the implications of physical inactivity such as sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, maladies such as obesity and others (Douglas et al. 2016).

Rationale

The main aim is to promote cycling activity among the school children in order to incorporate this physical exercise in their daily routine.

Table 1: Percentage of children travelling by different modes in England

(Source: Curl, Nelson and Anable 2015)

As per the annual report by National Travel Survey 2015 on the cycling schedule of the individuals of the England, only 2% of the total children in schools aging between 11 to 16 years undertake cycling effectively. While, 37% of them preferred walking and 60% of them preferred different motor modes. Such less percentage of children undertaking cycling is alarming contributing to their physical inactivity (Curl, Nelson and Anable 2015).

Table 2: Objectives and Outcomes:

(Source: Created by Author)

• Regulation of awareness campaigns by undertaking the usage of flyers, brochures, pamphlets, quiz, attractive games and other activities.
• Facilitation of First Aid in order to assist any sort of unfavourable incident during the cycling activity.
• Standard and optimal recording of the data collected on the daily basis and weekly analysis of it is to be undertaken (Harrison 2014).
• Optimal methodology for the issue of bike for the cycling activity among the target children.
• Facility of collecting feedback from the participants as well as associated family and teachers on their experiences and to understand the extent of awareness level in them.
• Formulation of a year contract with a local bike manufacturer for the arrangement of bikes for the undertaking of the cycling activity.
• Recruitment of the trained volunteers and interns for the conduction of the activity at the ground level (Wakalonge, White and Siuhi 2014).
• Provision of training of the associated volunteers and interns so they further can train the participants on the safe cycling practice.
• Arrangements for the purchasing of activity associated equipment and tools such as helmet, eye protectors, mouth guards, body armours, effective tyres and others.
• Formulation of questionnaire in order to access the extent of knowledge among the participants and associated family and teachers.
• Conduction of meetings on monthly basis among different associated members associated with the initiative for the analysis of the progress of the initiative undertaken (Robinson et al. 2014).
• Help from general practitioners for the analysis of the Body Mass Index (BMI) among the associated participants before and after the conduction of the initiative.

• The evaluation of the results will be determined by analysing the levels of Body Mass Index (BMI) among the participants after the completion of the project within the scheduled timeline of one year that is from September, 2017 to September, 2018.
• Expected resultant will be maintained equilibrium in the Body Mass index (BMI) of the participants. Furthermore, such analysis will be conducted in accordance with the formula of body mass index (BMI) and the guidelines provided by the WHO (Flint, Cummins and Sacker 2014)
• People are expected to have increment in the levels of awareness towards physical inactivity and associated maladies and illness among the children.
• Department of Transport to allocate much enhanced monetary help in order to upkeep the strategies and procedures required for the effective formulation, regulation and implementation of cycling activity among larger sample size of the children (Aldred and Jungnickel 2014).
• Association of bike manufacturers with the cycling project with the help of enhanced monetary help by Department of Transport will help in the conduction of project at the extensive scale.
• Effective analysis of the feedback undertaken from the participants and the associated family and teachers will enable participant-oriented decision-making to instil the physical activity in them.
• Optimal recording will assist in undertaking effective remedial measures as it is essential for future prospects (Goodman, Green and Woodcock 2014).

There shall be certain limitations that shall act as a barrier to optimal instillation of physical activity among the children aging between 10 to 15 years. Lack of effective and aggrandize approach by participants and associated family and teachers can prevent effective awareness procedures. Furthermore, social and cultural obligations and obstructions can also be a barrier implemented by the family members (Ritchie, Lewis and Elam 2013). Additionally, authoritative approach has been undertaken that is a top to down approach, so the resultant is expected to get influenced by the predetermined analysis, thinking and thoughts of the decision-makers. Besides this, another possible limitation shall be limited sample size for the analysis of the result and limited funding that prohibits the large scale implementation of program and shall confines the experiment only to 100 children with age between 10 to 15 years in west Thamesmead (Oleske 2014).

This initiative empowers the children along with associated family and teachers. The strategy is inclusive at promoting optimal health and hygiene with the help of effective evidence-based practices to be undertaken in accordance with the possible limitations associated with the initiation and regulation of the program. Ethics and integrity must preserve the principles, beliefs, morals and values of targeted individuals (Kraemer, Spears and Arcury 2015). Different approaches to ethics has led to the formulation of many frameworks but the widely accepted one is of Beauchamp and Childress (1995) that determines the importance of preservation of ethics and integrity on the basis of autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. Furthermore, there is vast difference between equality and justice. Equality determines equity to every individual irrespective of need and desire while justice is undertaken keeping need and desire of an individual in mind (Hove 2014).Such ethical preservation shall be preserved throughout the conduction of the health progressive strategy.   

Outline

References:

Abdelhak, M., Grostick, S. and Hanken, M.A., 2014. Health information: management of a strategic resource. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Aldred, R. and Jungnickel, K., 2014. Why culture matters for transport policy: the case of cycling in the UK. Journal of Transport Geography, 34, pp.78-87.

Douglas, M., Maluleke, T.X., D LABADARIOS, C.H. and NYEMBEZI, A., 2016. policy brief.

Easton, S. and Ferrari, E., 2015. Children's travel to school—the interaction of individual, neighbourhood and school factors. Transport Policy, 44, pp.9-18.

Flint, E., Cummins, S. and Sacker, A., 2014. Associations between active commuting, body fat, and body mass index: population based, cross sectional study in the United Kingdom. BMJ, 349, p.g4887.

Goodman, A., Green, J. and Woodcock, J., 2014. The role of bicycle sharing systems in normalising the image of cycling: An observational study of London cyclists. Journal of transport & health, 1(1), pp.5-8.

Harrison, N., 2014. Obesity and public health campaigning. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2(2), p.109.

HI module | Unhealthy Reflections. (2017). Unhealthyreflections.wordpress.com. Retrieved 1 April 2017, from https://unhealthyreflections.wordpress.com/tag/hi-module/

Hove, T., 2014. Ethical influence in health promotion: Some blind spots in the liberal approach. Public Health Ethics, p.phu009.

Kraemer Diaz, A.E., Spears Johnson, C.R. and Arcury, T.A., 2015. Perceptions that influence the maintenance of scientific integrity in community-based participatory research. Health Education & Behavior, 42(3), pp.393-401.

Munson, M.R. and Jaccard, J., 2016. Mental health service use among young adults: a communication framework for program development. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, pp.1-19.

Mwakalonge, J.L., White, J. and Siuhi, S., 2014. Distracted biking: A review of the current state-of-knowledge. International Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, 3(2), pp.42-51.

Oleske, D.M., 2014. Epidemiology and the delivery of health care services. Springer.

Ritchie, J., Lewis, J. and Elam, R.G., 2013. Selecting samples. Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers, p.111.

Robinson, M.N., Tansil, K.A., Elder, R.W., Soler, R.E., Labre, M.P., Mercer, S.L., Eroglu, D., Baur, C., Lyon-Daniel, K., Fridinger, F. and Sokler, L.A., 2014. Mass media health communication campaigns combined with health-related product distribution: a community guide systematic review. American journal of preventive medicine, 47(3), pp.360-371.

Rushnell, C. and Beattie, M., 2016. A project mAnAgement frAmeWork of heAlthcAre InformAtIcS InItIAtIveS. Healthcare Informatics: Improving Efficiency through Technology, Analytics, and Management, p.79.

Thompson, S.R., 2014. Approaches and models used to promote health. The Essential Guide to Public Health and Health Promotion, p.34.

Tremblay, M.S., Gray, C.E., Akinroye, K., Harrington, D.M., Katzmarzyk, P.T., Lambert, E.V., Liukkonen, J., Maddison, R., Ocansey, R.T., Onywera, V.O. and Prista, A., 2014. Physical activity of children: a global matrix of grades comparing 15 countries. Journal of physical activity and health, 11(s1), pp.S113-S125.