Health Crisis among Homeless People in New York City
New York City has an increased number of homelessness cases every year. According to the report from the city department of homeless services, from the year 2007 up to date, the number of families with children who are homeless and rely on Government support has increased by 68% from seven thousand six hundred and twenty-four families to eighteen thousand families in August 2022 (Padgett, 2020). Among these families, almost a quarter of the total families are adversely affected by poor health services. Many are depressed with their state of living, and therefore these call for the need for healthcare services to cater to their healthy living.
Children experiencing homelessness face many challenges that hinder their mental development, including adverse stress, lack of stability, and exposure to unsafe living conditions (Padgett, 2020). High-quality childcare and proper education are important for homeless children who do not have the environment that enables them to grow, develop and prepare them for success (Banerjee, & Bhattacharya, 2021). Homeless people face health issues of Infectious diseases as they appear to be at greater risk during a pandemic outbreak as a result of their compromised immune systems, poor nutrition and hygiene, and overcrowding at their shelters.
Additionally, several behaviors that some homeless individuals engage in for survival, for example, sex or intravenous drug use, raise the danger of disease transmission. Avoiding infectious ailments is challenging, and many homeless individuals struggle to access healthcare. Health promotion is very important today since this technique can address health issues. Health promotion assists in fostering public health leadership, empowering vulnerable people, and assist in developing healthy public policies across the health sector that will give equal health opportunities to everyone in a society.
Health is defined as the state of body well-being and not the absence of sickness or disability. According to the World Health Organization, everyone is entitled to proper healthcare (Gordon et al., 2019). Over the past years, the health sectors reported that having better healthcare services alone is not enough for a person’s well-being. Some factors beyond healthcare that can result in effective health include balanced political pressures and social and economic balance. These elements perfectly capture the idea of “health promotion,” which empowers individuals with control over their health and its determinants so they may improve it (Hall, & Singh, 2019). It includes individual, group, organizational, societal, and governmental initiatives supporting lifestyle, environmental, and other changes that enhance or safeguard health.
The Environmental Crisis
The World Health Organization claims that the global climate crisis has a significant impact on health, with air pollution alone causing the deaths of an estimated seven million people annually. Moreover, the same emissions contributing to global warming are to blame for more than 25% of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases, heart attacks, lung cancer, and stroke among homeless individuals (Kreider-Letterman, & Schmelzer, 2021). The body asserts that climate change worsens undernourishment and promotes the spread of infectious ailments.
World Health Organization Response to Environmental Crisis
The World Health Organization is committed to solving environmental crises affecting people’s health. It aims to promote the countries’ capacity via sharing good practices between countries through research, creating environmental policies that address hazards to health, internetworking the regional environmental experts and partners, and strengthening environmental surveillance (Shinn, & Cohen, 2019). The promotion of improved cooperation between the environmental and health sectors is emphasized. WHO aims to work closely with other environmental and healthcare bodies to accomplish Sustainable Development Goals and build national capacity for environmental health risk assessment and suitable multisectoral actions.
Disease Prevention Teaching Outline
World Health Organization aims to teach the public and empower them to choose healthy behaviors that can assist them in reducing the risk of contracting chronic diseases and other morbidities. It covers a great range of environmental and social interventions to address what causes ill health. The topics that people will be trained on by WHO are:
- Maintain Healthy Environment
- Social health
- Spiritual health
Healthy Environment
A healthy environment is important in maintaining a disease-free life. According to World Health Organization, Environmental Health covers all the areas of people’s surroundings that affect their quality of life and general health. WHO will teach the public about the safety measures for a healthy environment, including air quality, quality of food consumed, sources of water, and chemical exposure. Teaching will be done through seminars, road trip campaigns, and the development of broadcasts, digital tools, healthy flairs, and pamphlets.
Social Health
World Health Organization will teach the implementation of social health and disease prevention strategies. The body will teach the public how to maintain social health to prevent diseases from people’s bodies. Activities promoting health should further the program’s overarching health promotion and illness prevention objective. To achieve social health, materials created for health education programs must be adapted to the target people and suited to their culture. The teaching will be face-to-face interaction between the WHO agents and the public members.
Spiritual Health
Spiritual well-being is a sense of stability and harmony between the bodily and psychic selves. Being spiritually healthy involves understanding that you are not traveling alone and knowing where one might find solace and calm. This outline will be taught through concerts organized between the World Health Organization body and public members on the health practices to prevent diseases.
Preventing Infectious Diseases
Infectious diseases, when not taken care of, can be deadly. According to WHO, these diseases are projected to kill approximately five million people by 2025, and most will die from vaccine-preventable diseases (Lim et al., 2018). Limited funding of healthcare facilities is the major contributing factor to the spread of infectious diseases; as a result, the World Health Organization is projecting to provide funds and sponsor some health facilities to provide services to the homeless and vulnerable people (Radcliff et al., 2019). Additionally, they will reinforce immunization routines among these people, perform surveys to collect data that will be used in planning, and come up with more measures to eliminate adverse instances of drug resistance.
The body encourages increased use of community resources and volunteers to augment the core educational curriculum. Every community has people, material, and monetary resources that may be used to strengthen and broaden already-existing educational initiatives (Shinn, & Cohen, 2019). With the aid of community resources and volunteers, it has been possible to increase the variety of curricula offered, carry out field and study trips, provide various forms of tutoring, fund student-based businesses, and promote experiential learning.
Overall, health promotion and disease control initiatives are important in eradicating health issues within a specific community. Health education program materials must be culturally appropriate and tailored to the intended audience to guarantee cultural competency. This calls for tackling language and cultural inequalities among rural residents and possible barriers to preventing sickness and promoting good health.
References
Banerjee, D., & Bhattacharya, P. (2021). The hidden vulnerability of homelessness in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 67(1), 3-6. Web.
Gordon, S. J., Grimmer, K., Bradley, A., Direen, T., Baker, N., Marin, T.,… & Oliffe, J. L. (2019). Health assessments and screening tools for adults experiencing homelessness: A systematic review. BMC public health, 19(1), 1-14. Web.
Hall, G., & Singh, T. (2019). Supportive housing promotes AIDS-free survival for chronically homeless HIV-positive persons with behavioral health conditions. AIDS and Behavior, 23(3), 776-783. Web.
Kreider-Letterman, H., & Schmelzer, L. (2021). Occupational therapy and health promotion for families experiencing homelessness: a community-wide approach. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 9(2), 1-7. Web.
Lim, S., Singh, T. P., Hall, G., Walters, S., & Gould, L. H. (2018). Impact of a New York City supportive housing program on housing stability and preventable health care among homeless families. Health Services Research, 53(5), 3437-3454. Web.
Padgett, D. K. (2020). Homelessness, housing instability and mental health: Making the connections. BJPsych Bulletin, 44(5), 197-201. Web.
Radcliff, E., Crouch, E., Strombolis, M., & Srivastav, A. (2019). Homelessness in childhood and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Maternal And Child Health Journal, 23(6), 811-820. Web.
Shinn, M., & Cohen, R. (2019). Homelessness prevention: A review of the literature. Center for Evidence-Based Solutions to Homelessness. Web.