Middlesbrough Community Profile. The Health Improvement Issue and Epidemiology. Essay Example.

Introduction

Community profile refers to a data sheet that is used to record information on a broad range of factors. It is used in the understanding of the context of a community so that specific considerations can be identified and analyzed. These profiles take into account the following; environmental features, management, sociodemographic characteristics, political structures, economic activities, social organization, community facilities et cetera. This profile shows the basic understanding of the community as a whole and gives information on a specific area of interest. This paper seeks to describe the Middlesbrough community in the perspective of nursing. The profile describes the population, social epidemiology and the determinants of the health within the community.

In addition to this, the paper will concentrate on smoking as the primary health improvement issue. In this measure, the rationale and description of the characteristic of smoking will be considered. The status of the health condition of the group studied will be compared to the national average. Moreover, the report will explore what needs are required to be improved upon, especially the need to adopt healthy lifestyles. It will also discuss health improvements of Cancer, COPD, and Asthma resulting from excessive smoking. Additionally, it will address underlying issues such as poverty and different educational opportunities for the affected areas. Past epidemiology studies conducted in other regions have theorized that social background influences the occurrence of these conditions (Haustein, 2006).

Furthermore, the report will consider the available service provision aimed at addressing smoking. Then, it will discuss accessibility, including what may encourage or discourage people to uptake the service provision. Finally, it will explain the role of the nurse in facilitating access to the services.

Chapter 1

Community profile and characteristics of a Middlesborough Community

Middlesbrough is a midsized town located in the North-East of England. The towns substantial industrial development has made it a vibrant commercial center which has provided an opportunity for business to grow, people to gain employment and have enough money to enjoy a positive lifestyle. However, there has been a growing health concern which questions the health stability of members of the community (Brown, 2016). The city is beginning to manifest problems associated with big cities. This includes harmful lifestyle habits like drug abuse, excessive alcohol consumption and heavy smoking (England, 2014). As a result, the population of Middlesbrough is at risk of diseases such as asthma, cancer, and hypertension. This has been shown to have a substantial financial impact on the towns residents in general. According to the public health report of 2016, most people in this region are living in worse conditions than the England average. Middlesborough adds up as one of the most deprived unitary authorities in the country, and many children live in low-income families. In this region, life expectancy is low for both men and women than the England average. Most children are classified as obese, and the rate of alcohol-specific hospital stays averaging at 64.1 for people below 18 years of age (Cornes, Nagendran and Manthorpe, 2008). The significant health conditions in the adult population include excessive weight, smoking, and alcoholism.

Population

According to the UK population 2016, Middlesbrough city has around 138,400 residents in the wider geographical settlements. This city is part of the larger built-up area of the Teesside which has a population of 376,333 (Heslehurst et al., 2016). Middlesbrough native population of the English-speaking people comprises 94.6%, followed by other languages such as 0.7% Panjabi, 0.7%, Urdu, 0.6%, Arabic 0.4%, Polish 0.4%. Others include Chinese 0.35%, Czech 0.2%, Kurdish 0.2% and Persian/ Farsi 0.1%. 40.4% are married, while 10.9% are cohabiting (Guillot, 2014).

The population is comprised of 11.8% black and minority ethnic group within the city, and this occurs as the most diverse places in the North Eastern region (Heslehurst et al., 2016). The provincial average for this population in other areas is at 8.2%. of the total Middlesbrough population, 50.9% is female (Haustein, 2006). The following other characteristics exist within the community. The most population within the city is youthful with 19% of the people below 15 years of age. This represents an increment of about 3.5 percent compared to the local average statistics. Of the total population, 63.2 percent are Christians, 7% allied to Muslims and 22.3 percent having no religion (Heslehurst et al., 2016).

1.3 Lifestyle determinants health

Although some of the Middlesbrough residents try to practice a safe lifestyle, there exist high populations of people who smoke, consume excessive alcohol, abuse illicit drugs, engage in unsafe sex and have poor diet which impacts on their physical and mental wellbeing (Bell et al., 2017). Middlesbrough has recorded a significant problem with mental illnesses, and therefore mental health treatment has been a critical consideration. Various strategies adopted include rehabilitation and psychological recovery to help people with this issue. Social isolation and loneliness have been identified as the most common sources of psychiatric problems (Cornes, Nagendran and Manthorpe, 2008). The prevalence of obesity in the population has increased in all ages. These present a risk to diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and disability at later stages in life. In the older adults obesity has been associated with type 2 Diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.

Furthermore, there is a high frequency of sexually related problems such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV. Even more challenging is the high incidences of teenage pregnancies, this, in turn, have resulted in a higher percentage of under 18 pregnancy termination compared to national average. Most aspect evident in the community related to lifestyle includes unhealthy diet, smoking, drug abuse, and stress (WHO, 2017). These issues have presented physical and mental health of individuals.

1.4 Epidemiology

Given the vast number of factors, it is notable that Middlesbrough is not a heavily diseased community as compared to most developing nations. Middlesbrough residents life expectancy is improving over the last days. However, there is a silent progression of chronic and long-term diseases (Guillot, 2014). Most these long-term medical conditions include Cancer, Asthma, and COPD. Mental disorders and obesity are still considered the most long-term conditions in general. There is also a higher rate of self-harm, depression, psychiatric conditions, and suicide compared to the rest of England (Howe et al., 2017). It is reported that only 11.4 percent of the total adults in Middlesbrough are taking part in the recommended minimum level of physical activity (Bell et al., 2017). Therefore, this issue has been attributed to health conditions such as obesity among even the young population. Women have been described as the category that has lowest levels of physical activities and therefore they are more prevalent in the contraction of health-related conditions associated with inactivity.

Middlesbrough Council Health is individually responsible for the uptake of immunization in Middlesbrough. Various procedures have been used to come up with the most efficient, cost-effective and health interventions for vaccinations. Thus, over 95%, of children in Middlesbrough have now been immunized against Tetanus, Polio, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Mumps, Measles, and Rubella (Mattheys, Warren & Bambra, 2017). The local priorities in Middlesbrough include the improvement of health outcomes in children, tracking lifestyle risk factors, tracking the social causes of poor health and improving the emotional wellbeing of the general population. The authorities have also been keen on the social reasons of poor health and the improvement of mental health.

Chapter 22.1 The Health Improvement issue and epidemiology

We can describe Health Improvement as the various efforts undertaken to improve the community wellbeing by creating an environment that enables its residents to meet multiple health-related objectives. Health Improvement also encompasses the existing educational opportunities of the different areas (Scotland, 2017). NHS report labelled smoking as one of the major causes of illnesses and death in the UK. Approximately 100,000 people in the UK die from smoking or develop one of the 50 serious health condition related to smoking which results in long-term harm to their health (England, 2014). According to the health profile report, smoking is an issue that causes more deaths compared to many other causes such as cancer, accidents, and suicide (Shields et al., 2009). In Middlesbrough, there are more people being affected by long-term illnesses because of poor lifestyles. Comparatively, Middlesbrough has a relatively similar smoking rate as compared to the rest of England. Approximately 25.5% of adults in Middlesbrough smoke compared to England which is 16.9%. The smoking rates represent 27,000 people in Middlesbrough as compared 8.5 million in England (Guillot, 2014). With such a high number, smoking has increased the prevalence of chronic diseases of Cancer, COPD, and Asthma, which has doubled the health costs for Middlesbrough in general. It is worthwhile to point out that health bills take a significant portion of savings from the city and its residents. Although health-related factors create jobs for thousands of doctors, for ethical purposes, it is vital to maintaining prevention measures (Jenkins, 2017).

It is indicated that approximately 8.5 million people are smokers and about half of all long-term smokers will die from smoking. Therefore, the problem presents a substantial public health opportunity. Tobacco use has been estimated to cause 80,000 premature deaths in England each year, and the most of them occur in Middlesbrough (WHO, 2017).

The health and smoking statistics provided earlier form a clear link between the incidence of smoking in Middlesbrough and the rise in the occurrence of the health problems as mentioned more previously. England NSH report, (2014) indicate that while the percentage of adult smokers is decreasing in Middlesbrough, the decline is less than some other areas in the UK. However, the rate of smoking-related deaths is on the rise; indicating clearly that more is needed to be done to tackle this problem. Bell et al. (2017) suggest that while there are programs in place to help with the cessation of smoking, nonetheless there is still a high percentage of smokers in the area; with those under the age of 18 been the bulk of primary at-risk groups. It is indicated that often this team will bypass the purchasing laws that are active locally by a...