Preliminary Needs Assessment

Preliminary Needs Assessment

Targeted Objective

Specific HP 2010 objective: Type 2 Diabetes

Targeted behavior: Increase the awareness of the dangers of diabetes and provide education on preventing type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise.

Specific target population: Individuals over 40 years old.

Purpose of Needs Assessment

What is diabetes? Diabetes is a dangerous condition that causes blood sugar to rise to dangerous levels. When blood sugar gets to dangerous levels it can be life threatening. This topic is extremely important to me because my mother is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. This means that I am predisposed to the disorder. Since I am overweight I am at high risk to developing the disorder. Unfortunately, growing up there were never any programs to prevent childhood obesity or programs to provide knowledge on the dangers that obesity can lead to. If these programs were implemented when I was in my teenage years perhaps I would have been able to join a nutrition or fitness program. This could have motivated me to be more physically active. Now here I am in my twenties now getting the proper information and guides to adjusting my lifestyle to prevent this from happening. Since this is so close to home I feel compelled to design and implement a diabetes awareness and prevention program in South Florida. It is crucial to get the knowledge and awareness out in our community so more people can get moving and begin eating better to live a longer and have a quality filled life. This program is critical, this program will be able to provide awareness and prevention simply by sharing valuable information that some individuals may not have access to. This program will teach individuals how to change their current unhealthy lifestyles by changing their eating habits and developing a better exercise routine. Just by doing those two it can prevent you from being diagnosed with a chronic illness such as type 2 diabetes. The program will be for all ages. Diabetes is more common for older individuals but providing the information early on it will implement the right tools to a live a healthy and long life. I want to provide the tools and knowledge that I was not given when I was in my teenage years.

Health Risks of Type 2 Diabetes

Your chances of developing Type 2 diabetes may depend on genetics but also lifestyle. We will be focusing on lifestyle since genetics will predispose you to diabetes. Although, genes play a factor it does not necessarily mean you are automatically going to get it. With hard-work and the right awareness you can prevent from being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. According to the National Institute of Diabetes, you are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes if you

· are overweight or obese

· are age 45 or older

· have a family history of diabetes

· are African American, Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander

· have high blood pressure

· have a history of gestational diabetes 

· are not physically active

· have a history of heart disease or stroke

("Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes | NIDDK," 2016).

This is why it is important to create an awareness program so we can get more individuals physically active and eat healthier so they can better their lifestyle. This will be able to prevent an individual from being prone to the disorder.

Incidence and Prevalence Rates of the Health Risks

According to Diabetes.org, the prevalence of diabetes in a study done in 2015 reported 30.3 million American of the population had diabetes. Approximately, 1.25 million children and adults have type 1 diabetes. There are 1.5 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes every year. In 2015, 84.1 million Americans years 18 and older had prediabetes. Diabetes remains the 7th leading cause of death in the United States. This same report shows that in 2015 there were a reported 79,535 death certificates listing it as the underlying cause of death, and a total of 252,806 death certificates listing diabetes as an underlying or contributing cause of death ("Statistics About Diabetes," n.d.).

Minimizing the risk

One of the approaches on minimizing the risk would be to work with the community to implement free to low cost physical activities throughout the area. For example, I am aware of a couple hospitals who offer free Zumba, yoga and Pilate classes to the local community. This helps individuals get up and get moving. In our program we will provide the listings for all these local free to low cost classes so that individuals can have more access. We can also start implementing nutrition classes throughout the community or have a general listing on where an individual can go for that. We want our program to have all the information required to help prevent diabetes and create awareness throughout the South Florida community. The more awareness that is spread the better the outcome of individuals getting diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Evidence Based- Literature Review

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM; 2013), obesity is one of the greatest challenges to society and public health. 1 in 3 individuals will develop diabetes during his/her lifetime. Evidence-based programs have shown that healthy lifestyle behaviors reduce risk of obesity as well as development of type 2 diabetes. According to a Diabetes Prevention Program study done in 2004 (Achieving Weight and Activity Goals Among Diabetes Prevention Program Lifestyle Participants, 2004) it showed that intensive lifestyle intervention reduced the risk of diabetes by 58%. This study included 1079 participants. The goal for the participants was to lose 7% weight loss and 150 minutes a week of physical activity. There was an assessment at week 24 and then a final assessment about 3 years later. The results of the study showed that 49% met the weight loss goal and 74% met the activity goal. The criteria for this study included an age of at least 25 years, a Body Mass Index of 24 or greater, a fasting glucose of 95-125 and a glucose value of 140-199 mg 2 hours after a 75grams of sugar load. The lifestyle intervention recommended the participants to brisk walk to reach their activity goal. Other activities similar to brisk walking was also allowed and applied to the goal for the study. The study made sure to get the participants to be mentally prepared and motivated at the start. This helped patients get off to a good start and end with great results and long-term success. Although, this study was more extensive than the program I would like to implement it is great to see the evidence-based literature that lifestyle programs can help prevent patients from being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Another study I want to look at is implementing wellness programs in the workplace by providing a program it can ultimately prevent type 2 diabetes and other diseases related to lifestyle wellness. This study mentions that by implementing a wellness program it actually saves them money on health costs ("Workplace Wellness Programs Can Generate Savings | Health Affairs," 2017). It is beneficial for the hospital to have a program in place. In this particular study the hospital offered several guides and tools for their employees. They provided fitness programs, smoking cessation, classes, seminars, self-help education, individual counselling and incentives for participation. This wellness program that was implemented engaged a lot of its employees and helped change a lot of lifestyles. The education provided to the employees gave them the right knowledge to prevent type 2 diabetes. It also helped lower health costs for the company. This was an interesting study. One of my previous workplaces offered a similar wellness program. It allowed employees to get incentives if they reached their health and fitness goals. If you were classified under a healthy bracket by your primary care physician then your health insurance would lower by $20-30 a month. It gave the employees motivation to stick to the wellness program in order to benefit from the bonus of saving money monthly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as mentioned above the implementation a diabetes awareness and prevention program in South Florida is critical. As the numbers for individuals being diagnosed with diabetes each year keep rising, there needs to be something done to address this. This program will be able to educate individuals on what they need to do in order to prevent this life-threatening disease. By spreading the word, providing the right education and tools and working hard to implement more wellness programs in the workplace I believe this will help out community in keeping the number of diagnosed patients down. It will also help save more money on health costs by being healthier and not being on medication and constantly at the doctor’s office for health assessments. By showing individuals that just by being active and eating right will lead to a long and quality filled life it will motivate them to get started and make important and critical changes with their lifestyle.

References

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. (2013). Evaluating obesity prevention efforts: A plan for measuring progress. (Author), Retrieved from http://www.iom.edu/evaluatingprogress

Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes | NIDDK. (2016, November 30). Retrieved from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/risk-factors-type-2-diabetes

Statistics About Diabetes. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/

The Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. (2004). Achieving Weight and Activity Goals Among Diabetes Prevention Program Lifestyle Participants. Obesity Research, 12(9), 1426–1434. http://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2004.179

Workplace Wellness Programs Can Generate Savings | Health Affairs. (2017, August 2). Retrieved from https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2009.0626