Promoting Obesity Health Care Plan
The Target Client the Health Services Marketing Plan
The rural populations experience higher rates of obesity due to the lack of information available to them in regards to healthy living, balanced diets, and health risk awareness. Regarding my initiative of providing the youth population with obesity mitigation interventions, my target population would be the multicultural migrant children from the rural area. These clients would be between the ages of 3 to 16 years old with other isolated cases (Caliendo & Gehrsitz, 2016). Most of these clients would be school going children between 6 to 16 years of age. The majority of these patients will reside with their parents or guardians.
These target clients are associated with patterns of consuming high calorie meals and sugary snacks. They also seem to lack suitable exercising facilities thus do not engage in physical exercises. Most of my clients came from families that purchase easy to make inexpensive freezer meals that last longer. The majority of their combined annual family income is less than $50,000. Some of the parents would initially reject obesity interventions for their children due to the lack of proper orientation on the importance of healthy living. Other parents will reject the intervention due to traditional beliefs that being fat is normal or a sign of wellness and happiness (Puhl & Heuer, 2010). In time, their parents will value these new services and will take their obese children in for intervention.
Hurdles of and Promoting a Healthcare Marketing Plan
Economic Barrier
Promoting obesity mitigation project on a low-income rural population will encounter numerous hurdles. First, the parents and guardians of my clients would likely have limited resources to pay for the obese treatment. Their uninsured state would further make it difficult for them to attend these mitigation sessions. Parents whose children have health insurance coverage would still face burdensome cost-sharing via premium payments, deductibles, and copayments (Puhl & Heuer, 2010). The underinsured will not be able to obtain the required types of healthcare services which are often costly. This factor is likely to interfere with the general service delivery program in the form of transport, outreach, administrative overhead, and high-risk care.
I would address this financial obstacle by creating a health fund to help pay for the visits of obese clients that cannot afford the cost of the mitigation services. I would also help them acquire public health insurance to protect their health needs in the marginalized region. This voucher would help to cater to the needs of the patient and my business services (Caliendo & Gehrsitz, 2016). Further, I would seek for internal monetary help from the community hospital in the city through legal structures towards impacting lives in this rural area.
Informational Barrier
I also expect to experience informational obstacles, thereby increasing the costs of crucial activities such as outreach and advertisement strategies. These are necessary methods that could help to orientate the population on the need for obese mitigation and healthy living. Lack of this information is likely to cause a low client enrollment rate. Parents with literacy problems will remain in the dark about the entire program, thereby keeping their obese children at homes (Puhl & Heuer, 2010). I would develop strategic and optimistic advertisement approaches that integrate the local language to reach every sector of these rural populations. For example, I would engage my team to create and distribute eye-catching posters across all sections of the rural population. I would also involve the already existing team of service supporters in an anti-obese community tour across the region towards informing the populations about our obese mitigation services. I could subdivide my group into various mobile service supporters to offer services across the area and engage the enrolled children to overweight mitigation interventions.
References
Caliendo M, & Gehrsitz M. (2016). Obesity and the labor market: a fresh look at the weight penalty. Econ Hum Biol: 23:209–25.
Puhl RM, & Heuer CA.(2010). Obesity stigma: important considerations for public health. Am J Public Health 2010; 100:1019–28.