How Serving as a Public Health Administrator at a Border is a Challenge
People living across borders often suffer high rates of communicable and preventable diseases (Flores & Kaplan, 2009). Tuberculosis and intestinal infections are some of the common diseases, which affect this demographic. This has been the case along the US-Mexico border (National Latino Research Center, 2004). From a socioeconomic standpoint, people living across this border suffer from high rates of poverty and unemployment. The lack of proper insurance for such populations further compounds this problem (National Latino Research Center, 2004). Research shows that the lack of clean water and poor sewage disposal methods are some of the potential causes of these health problems (Viergever, 2013). Health workers often experience many challenges associated with providing health services for people who live along this border. For example, disparities in health systems between the US and Mexico affect the quality of health care along the border because both countries have varying socioeconomic determinants of health (World Health Organization, n.d.). Moreover, these differences create disparities in health care access and use. Health insurance access is also another issue that emerges in this region because differences in health systems often mean that some people have access to health insurance, while others do not. For example, US citizens often enjoy Medicaid and Medicare programs, while their Mexican neighbors do not. Cultural differences between Mexico and the US also emerge as a problematic area for public health workers in cross-border health management because different cultural practices affect how people perceive health interventions, or whether they would accept new health interventions, or not (Flores & Kaplan, 2009). Poor environmental health quality is another health challenge that affects the quality of health along the US-Mexico border. Indeed, there has been little focus on the improvement of hazardous waste management and health assessment along this border (National Latino Research Center, 2004). Lastly, language differences, varying economic strengths, and different levels of economic awareness among Mexican and American populations impede efforts by health workers to solve health issues at the border. These challenges affect the delivery of quality health services in this area. Collectively, these factors show how serving as a public health administrator at a border is challenging.
Strategies for Developing a More Effective Public Health Workforce
Having an effective public health workforce is important in developing an effective public health infrastructure for planning, delivering, and evaluating public health services (World Health Organization, n.d.). Education and training are formidable strategies for developing an effective workforce. For example, training existing employees about how to manage the challenges of cross-border health management could help them overcome most of the associated challenges of health management. Similarly, it would help them to develop solutions for cross-border health crises (Viergever, 2013). Education and training processes may include several actions, including developing and implementing generic public health competencies, integrating competencies in professional development, and lifting the ability of the public health workforce to lead the health sector (Flores & Kaplan, 2009). Availing supporting information to health workers through research is also another strategy for supporting the public health workforce. These strategies should support public health programs through policy streamlining. Lastly, nurturing and developing supportive workplace cultures could easily improve the performance of the public health workforce because it would help the workers to realize maximum workforce ability and capacity (National Latino Research Center, 2004).
Another Border Area That May Pose Its Unique Health Challenges
Similar to the cross-border health challenges between Mexico and the US, America, and Canada also have unique cross-border health challenges. Health insurance is one such challenge. Canada enjoys a universal health care system that the US does not have. It would be difficult for a public health worker working along the border to harmonize health care delivery services when providing health services to affected residents. The lack of standardized data across both countries may also create the same challenge by providing different health indicators for health practitioners in both countries. These differences may create confusion when analyzing health data in both countries (World Health Organization, n.d.).
Challenges and What May Be Done To Ameliorate Them
Promoting inter-agency coalitions along the Mexico-US border could overcome the challenges of cross-border health management in the region (National Latino Research Center, 2004). This strategy should include health agencies from both sides of the divide. By collaborating with one another, they should harmonize policy challenges that impede the provision of quality health services. Similarly, both countries should come up with new strategies for overcoming cultural barriers that could impede the provision of health services (Viergever, 2013). This outcome would be beneficial to health care practitioners who intend to provide health services across multicultural regions. Here, health agencies from both parties should provide valuable information about the cultural practices of both countries and relay the same information to foreign health agencies so that they are culturally sensitive to their targeted population (Viergever, 2013).
Another Strategy for Addressing Challenges Related To another Border Region
America and Canada need to overcome significant barriers in cross-border health management to manage the unique health challenges associated with the border region. To do so, health agencies need to standardize their data collection formats to harmonize existing and vital statistics (Flores & Kaplan, 2009). They also need to bridge information gaps in environmental health management to improve the quality of information obtained in public health management (National Latino Research Center, 2004).
References
Flores, L., & Kaplan, A. (2009). Addressing the Mental Health Problems of Border and Immigrant Youth. Web.
National Latino Research Center. (2004). The Border that Divides and Unites: Addressing Border Health in California. Web.
Viergever, R. F. (2013). The mismatch between the health research and development (R&D) that is needed and the R&D that is undertaken: An overview of the problem, the causes, and solutions. Web.
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Mortality and global health estimates. Web.