Question :
This assessment will cover the following questions:
- Generate knowledge and understanding of health promotion and the relevant strategies to maintain or enhance health and wellbeing.
- Evaluate ability to produce a health promotion artefact that is relevant to the public health issue, target population and setting
- Elaborate knowledge and understanding of a public health issue from a holistic perspective.
Answer :
INTRODUCTION
Health and well-being are considered as the absence of physical illness, mental disorder and disease. Further, it can be described as an attainment or maintenance of physical fitness & mental stability. Moreover, health promotions enable individuals to increase control over their own health condition. In addition, it includes a wide number of social & ecological interventions that are created to provide benefits and prevent people.
This report will design & create a health promotion artefact on Alcohol Awareness, to be presented at a health promotion event. Proper knowledge and understanding of this health issue from a holistic perspective. In task second it will cover own performance design & creation of artefact
TASK 1
Alcohol awareness:
Alcohol Awareness is basically the term which states that spreading information to public about the usage and abuse of alcohol. It has been discovered that, alcohol is considered as the most commonly used drug abused in the United Kingdom, as millions of people suffer from alcohol abuse. It has been determined that, the risk of having alcohol dependence starts at low levels of drinking & raise directly with both volume of it consumed & a pattern of drinking larger amounts on an occasion (Critchlow, Moodie and Hastings, 2016).
In medical care, the term alcohol drug abuse was used as disorder from 1994 to 2013. Further, the level of misuse of Britain has changes over recent centuries. Moreover, since then the alcohol trends & drug abuse have increased steadily. On the other, major role was played by British physicians in the emergence of this concept of addiction from primary challenge to Galen's theories and now to the broadly implemented Alcohol Dependence Syndrome. Production of alcoholic drinks is considered purposeful and often indicates culture characteristic as much as sociological conditions. It was recognised and sponsored by NCADD, an Alcohol Awareness Month was introduced in 1987 to help to decrease the stigma so often associated with alcoholism by motivating communities to reach out to the public, each of April with data regarding alcohol, its disorder and recover. Further, it was discovered that, alcoholism is considered as a chronic, progressive disease, which is genetically predisposed and kills if not treated.
Too frequently drinking is an expectation rather than a choice. Many human beings are suffering in UK, as the result of their own or other's drinking habits. Furthermore, in UK many individuals choose to drink more healthily or each year take a step & stop drinking. Due to this their lives and lives of others around them change in positive way. Therefore, a great exercise is happening in health promotion sector across the country. In addition, many organisations and charities are campaigning for system-wide improvement so fewer people are harmed through alcohol abuse (Williams, Alexande and Dillon, 2017).
The Alcohol Awareness Week 2017 in UK started in November. The major attention was on families & alcohol, and the campaign's organiser. Alcohol Concern, the health promotion organiser had taken the opportunity to begin a conversation around the risky drinking to assist break the cycle of silence and stigma that is all frequently experienced by families. Furthermore, it was discovered that the campaign was sharing the stories of people affected by dangerous drinking, including cases of alcohol services performing great across the UK. Given below are the facts about alcohol:-
- Harmful drinking is considered as the biggest danger or risk factor for death of millions of people, ill-health and disability among 14 to 50 years in age across the UK.
- 50% of violent crime is because of alcohol.
- There were about 8756 deaths in 2015, due to alcohol abuse in the UK.
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There is an organisation Alcohol Health Network, that is on a mission to encourage greater alcohol awareness across the UK, in local areas, places of work and Universities. They believe that, every individual must understand how to stay healthy, drink safely and live a health life for longer (Contreras, Hidalgo and Varela, 2015).
Impact of Alcohol Abuse and Addiction:
Excessive drinking over a period can be very harmful to people's health. Here are some its affects to an individual's body:-
- Brain :- alcohol which is considered as a neurotoxin, that undergoes and passes with the brain's communication pathways, and can adversely affect the way the brain works. These barriers or disruptions can change mood & behaviour of a person. Further, it also makes it tough to think clearly & logically and also affect physical coordination.
- Liver :- liver is considered as the particularly affected through alcohol and associated to its damages. An individual's liver can become injured or adversely affected is that individual has the habit of drinking alcohol regularly. Variety of problems can be occurred due to heavy drinking that involves; fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis.
- Heart :- heart muscles weakens due to heavy drinking of alcohol, which states that heart can't pump blood as effectively. Therefore, this condition of a person having excessive drinking is known as alcoholic cardiomyopathy. Further, it symptoms involves shortness of breath, fatigue and swollen hands & feet. Also, it has been determined that among heavy drinkers, females are more suspected to alcohol related heart disease issues.
- Cancer :- many studies prove that excessive drinking raises the risk breast cancer. Also, it is connected to cancers of the digestive track & of the head and neck. The risk is specifically high in smokers who are drink regularly (Williams, Aspinall and Hickman, 2014).
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In UK, 50 years ago the country had one of the lowest drinking levels and over the last decade it has been seen that a culture is expanding where drinking has become acceptable to be excessively drunk in public & cause nuisance and risk to their own lives (Petticrew, Douglas and Mays, 2016). The problem has evolved due to the following reasons:
- Cost effective or cheap alcohol is easily available, also needs of industry and commercial benefits have too often been priorities across the country. This has further resulted in changes in behaviour with rising range of people drinking heavily at home.
- Previous government bodies have failed to fight against this problem. Moreover, the culture, much promised by the previous Government's Licensing Act, that failed to materialised.
- There has not been enough challenges to people who drink and influence harm to others.
Strategies to maintain or enhance health and well-being in UK:
- Government of the UK, wherever possible takes action to tackle alcohol related harm, violence, crime and disorder at the local level by those who clearly understand the problem that their society is experiencing.
- Government had also taken steps to reduce the availability of cheap alcohol, as in 2010 euro 42.1 billion was spent on alcohol in England and Wales alone. In addition, it was discovered that. Alcohol was so heavily sold at discounted rates and there is stronger and constant evidence that a rise in the prices of alcohol decreases the demand for alcohol which in turn result in reduction in harm. This also included those who regularly drink excessively and young drinkers under the age of 18.
- Alcohol Taxation was reviewed by the government in 2010 that recognised the majority of drinkers consume alcohol in responsible manner. Therefore, actions were already taken by government to tackle the availability of heavily discounted alcohol by; increasing alcohol duty 2% above retail inflation every year to 2014-15, establishing a minimum juice rule for cider and introducing a new higher rate of duty for higher beer over 7.5%.
- Apart from all these, the UK would support any future changes to the EU regulations to enable duty on wine to increase in line with alcoholic strength. In addition, the UK will also desire a full impact assessment, involving the health aspects.
- The UK Government will establish a minimum unit price for alcohol, for the first time in England and Wales, hence, alcohol will not be allowed to be trade below a specific defined price (Sacks, Gonzales and Brewer, 2015).
- Moreover, it has been discovered that there is a connection between advertising and people's alcohol consumption, specifically those who are under age of 18. Some countries have introduced a complete ban or stop on alcohol advertising to handle this problem and promote health and well being.
- Apart from this, the government has a responsibility to find and handle new and emerging challenges, whether they are related to crime such as rise in alcohol duty fraud, related to health like increasing incidents of liver disease.
- There has been 25% rise in liver disease in UK between 2001 and 2009, so their recent published liver disease strategy sets out, the reason about why liver illness is a rising concern for the country, the important need to prevent this issue better and what NHS will be required to handle it.
- UK communities must not have to tolerate crime or disorder related to alcohol as a quarter of population think that drunk behaviour is a problem in their local areas. People should not anticipate to be able to ignore or avoid their responsibilities when drunk. Therefore, government will make sure that local agencies and the police have the authority to make those who cause danger, face the consequences of their actions (Stockwell, Zhao and Chikritzhs, 2016).
Furthermore, the government will support NHS trust and Foundation Trust to perform with their local police to make sure that right actions are taken, involving through hospital security members being empowered through the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (Smyth, Teo and Schutte, 2015).
TASK 2
Student ID: |
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My evaluation of my performance in developing and creating the artefact. |
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While making this report, my aim was to complete my task in the given time period with best possible and accurate understanding. The first thing I kept in mind was to write everything step-by-step so that I could not miss to cover any topic under Alcohol Awareness. I made great efforts to acquire wide understanding about the causes of excessive alcohol and strategies adopted by UK government. |
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My evaluation of the artefact I created. |
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I don’t depend on common methods to solve a problem, rather address each topic with creativity and fresh perspective. As my topic was “Alcohol awareness” and to present my knowledge and understanding I have my best researching about this, however, it took time to search for proper and accurate study but as per my opinion, I have completed it in a good way with best possible findings in this report. I am glad that was able to accomplish my report on time including my best knowledge regarding Alcohol Awareness in UK and strategies taken by government or will take in this context. |
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What have I learnt from the process and what would I do differently in future? |
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I have learned that, Alcohol Awareness is considered so important for the country, and alcohol is responsible for more days off work per year than the 10 most common cancers combined. Moreover, I have also learnt that, alcohol abuse is related with 60 illness that includes 7 types of cancer, heart problem, stroke and diabetes. Therefore, it is necessary to create a healthy environment across UK by promoting and health and well-being. Although, there were some areas where I didn’t do well such as the holistic perspective of alcohol awareness, as I couldn’t find well described information of it. All these information I have collected through secondary sources that is internet and websites, but in future I will do differently i.e. I will make use of primary information. In other words, I will do a survey among the country’s population and learn their views regarding excessive alcohol drinking, alcohol awareness and measure taken by government to stop or reduce it. This is because, this primary data collection method will provide me more accurate information. |
CONCLUSION
The overall report concluded that, the government of UK broadly supports the approaches adopted in this very useful policy document such as increasing the price of alcohol and banning advertisement about consumption of alcohol and so on. It also concluded that, alcohol is not a common commodity. It is the nation’s preference drug and must be the high consideration of strong measures to prevent harm to users, children, families & the wider society.
REFERENCE
- Critchlow, N., Moodie, C. and Hastings, G., 2016. Awareness of, and participation with, digital alcohol marketing, and the association with frequency of high episodic drinking among young adults. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy. 23(4). pp.328-336.
- Contreras, A., Hidalgo, C. and Varela, C., 2015. The application of non-Saccharomyces yeast in fermentations with limited aeration as a strategy for the production of wine with reduced alcohol content. International journal of food microbiology. 205. pp.7-15.
- Petticrew, M., Douglas, N. and Mays, N., 2016. Health information on alcoholic beverage containers: has the alcohol industry's pledge in England to improve labelling been met?. Addiction. 111(1). pp.51-55.
- Sacks, J J., Gonzales, K. R. and Brewer, R. D., 2015. 2010 national and state costs of excessive alcohol consumption. American journal of preventive medicine. 49(5). pp.e73-e79.
- Scheideler, J.K. and Klein, W.M., 2018. Awareness of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer across the world: a review. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers. 27(4). pp.429-437.
- Smyth, A., Teo, K.K. and Schutte, A.E., 2015. Alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease, cancer, injury, admission to hospital, and mortality: a prospective cohort study. The Lancet. 386(10007). pp.1945-1954.