The choice of the public health prevention framework could be crucial in terms of the effectiveness of the therapy. In the case of Susan, there are two options to choose from, the traditional prevention model and the Institute of Medicine framework. This essay will define the public-health prevention model and the IOM model and describe their benefits to recommend a suitable choice for the case.
The traditional public-health prevention model includes three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. All 3 of the levels have their own goals and play different roles in preventing the disease (White, 2020). The primary prevention level concentrates on the overall health of the citizens and consists of routine procedures based on building immunity. Generally, the primary level involves maintaining a healthy lifestyle, regular physical activities, and a nutritional regime that usually helps prevent a significant number of diseases. The secondary level focuses on improving an individual’s health and implies regular screenings and checkups. The goal of the second level is to regularly check the individuals in order to detect the disease before it progresses. The tertiary level is designed for the treatment of the disease itself as well as the recovery process. The benefits of using the traditional model include an even distribution of patients between the medical institutions and an adequate workload on the professionals that matches the public’s needs.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) model of prevention, on the other hand, differentiates people by three categories of the general public, those who are in the risk zone of the disease and ones heavily impacted by the disease. All people fit either universal, selective, or indicated levels of prevention arc from the IOM framework. The IOM framework has more steps than the traditional 3-layer model, which helps to address issues more effectively because each of the seven steps has distinctive features in disease progression. IOM model is more suitable for diseases that include behavioral aspects, like obesity, substance use, or mental health problems.
In the case of Susan, an IOM framework seems more useful, as she already estimated the percentage of overweight and obese children. Applying the traditional preventing system to the case would not help as much as the IOM framework. The primary level from the traditional model and IOM framework are equal in terms of spreading awareness for the healthy children in the case. However, the second level of the traditional model consists of yearly screenings to prevent the disease. In case of Susan, there is no effective use in screenings if it is determined that a group of children are already classified as overweight. Using the methods for the tertiary level would not help obese and overweight children in the same way.
The combination of diet and physical activities is generally known as the most effective at reducing weight among children and adults. Before starting any of the procedures, Susan must determine the amount of excess fat in every individual child to know exactly how to differentiate the overweight and obese children without using the BMI index (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). The application of the IOM model to the case would create different sets of activities for the two categories of children. Susan might need to encourage the teachers to use various physical activities to get the children excited about physical activity (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2013). As for the children with obesity, Susan could introduce obese children’s parents to a family-based intervention that included dietary activity (Mead et al., 2017). The combination of physical activities and diet could help the children lose excess fat.
In conclusion, the public health prevention model consists of primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. The IOM model includes seven steps in which three of the steps are dedicated to prevention. The IOM model is more useful in issues that include behavioral problems. In the case of Susan, the IOM model is more suitable as it would help with the introduction of different sets of activities for the two categories of children.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012). About child & teen BMI.CDC. Web.
Mead, E., Brown, T., Rees, K., Azevedo, L.B., Whittaker, V., Jones, D., Olajide, J., Mainardi, G.M., Corpeleijn, E., O’Malley, C., Beardsmore, E., Al‐Khudairy, L., Baur, L., Metzendorf, M.I., Demaio, A., and Ells, L.J. (2017). Diet, physical activity and behavioural interventions for the treatment of overweight or obese children from the age of 6 to 11 years.Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 6. Web.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2013). How to tell if your child is at a healthy weight. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Web.
White, F. (2020). Application of Disease Etiology and Natural History to Prevention in Primary Health Care: A Discourse.Medical Principles and Practice, 29(6), 501-513. Web.