Population Health

Population Health

Introduction

Population health approach contributes significantly to improve the health of the population through identification of the problem at a collective level. It helps in evaluating the extent of the need of treatment and contributing factors for the problem. Determining the key health requirements of the population can serve the basis of effective interventions targeted at the population at risk (Beverley, 2000). This paper aims to study how the individual assessment can be utilized to indicate population based health care decisions.

Population Health Approach

All health care models and programs formulate in order to provide health impartiality by eliminating the differences. These differences in health status arise between groups or sub groups of population and are unavoidable, unjust and unfair. Equal opportunities of access to health care services and impartiality in need of healthy individuals can only be achieved by addressing the uneven distribution of resources among the communities. World health care concluded health inequity as the cause of unequal power, income and goods distribution, on the national and global levels. People suffer from unfairness because of inaccessibility to educational institutes, work conditions diminishing chances of living a flourishing life. Poor social service programs, unfair economic arrangements and bad politics cause detrimental effects to the health of individuals (Keleher, 2011).

Care providers and institutes are widely adopting population health model recently. It is the strategy to integrate the health care systems in order to deliver better results. It is based on the social model of health and deals with the factors that undermine health. The main purpose of this new strategic approach is to use comprehensive data to prevent illness and promote health particularly for disadvantaged and underprivileged communities (Keleher, 2011). The secondary goal of using population health approach is to increase effectiveness and efficiency of health sector. It integrates with other sectors that can help in this regard. World Health Organization defines this approach as the way of making connections between poor health, social inclusion, scarcity, life styles, disease avoidance and health endorsement activities. It is a provision of gathering intelligence data and analyzing it to ensure availability of better health plans like early childhood plans, access to necessary primary care and access to basic necessities of life to prevent illness irrespective of social and economical differences. Thus, the vision and focus of population health is wide ranging and bigger with the goal of reaching the unreached (Keleher, 2011).

The approach includes formulation of effective resourcing, designing and implementation of various activities. The activities are conducted by collaborative relationships of governmental and private health care agencies. This includes the role of professionals and individuals in improving population health and reducing inequalities of health care across communities. Planning of implementing population health models is a complex and sophisticated process. Population health model requires data to be collected from different sectors that manipulate the determinants of health for populations and analyze them to find out the cause of inequities (Keleher, 2011). The activity is involving processes, intentions and investments across multiple ...