Health and Human Services

Lucreshia Jackson

American Sentinel College of Nursing & Health Sciences

Dr. Teri Logghe

28 September 2022

Health and Human Services

Healthcare infrastructure is fundamental to providing, improving, developing, and assessing public health (Borrell et al., 2021). The health infrastructure helps the community prevent, promote, and respond to chronic and acute health issues. A healthy population is defined by its access to agencies, goods or services, and essential facilities for healthy living. Hospitals provide care and services in situations such as childbirth, surgery, life-threatening emergencies, and non-emergency medicine (Borrell et al., 2021).

By touring around Sentinel City, I observed the main hospital located in the Casper Park area. The hospital is located in a convenient area for the neighboring areas despite it being a little bit far from the Lake View neighborhood. Several clinics and facilities provide health care, such as pharmacies, dental clinics, vision clinic, and urgent care facilities. Nursing homes, assisted living, rehabilitation centers, hospice care, and long-term care are also included. Exercise facilities in the City provide wellness and health opportunities. Many services offered by the Public health Department in Sentinel city, such as physical, mental, and financial, provide the community with different care options.

Nutrition is a major contributor to the health of the public. Improved and better nutrition among the public results in stronger immune systems, safer childbirth and pregnancies, and improved child, maternal, and infant health. It also prevents the spread of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes and increases our longevity (Bandy et al., 2019). On my tour around Sentinel City, I could observe fast-food restaurants. However, these types of restaurants do not provide nutritious food options. Therefore, the residents of Sentinel City need to visit the grocery stores, farm markets, or produce stands located in the City to access healthier foods. The residents in the City should include non-saturated fats, vegetables, and fresh fruits for vitamins and proteins and limit the intake of saturated fats and sugars. The public health department of Sentinel City aids the residents by providing healthier food options to both individuals and their families and also provides nutritional educational resources.

To provide its services to the community or the public, the health department and its infrastructure heavily rely on its workers. The health systems cannot function without any workforce in them. The functions of improving the coverage of health services and the realization of the enjoyment rights on higher attainable health standards by the health systems depend on the acceptability, quality, and availability of the healthcare workforce (Zapata et al., 2021). Those states in the world that are in the stage of socioeconomic development always struggle to employ, educate, or retain a healthcare workforce of high quality due to the difficulties of deploying such workers to underserved or remote areas (Medline plus, 2022).

Sentinel City should use the resources of the health sciences students within the City of Sentinel to manage the matters of maintaining the public health workers. They should allow the students to assist the underserved populations within the City and provide healthcare in prone areas inside the City and its surrounding, benefiting both the public and the students. Students will also be granted the experience of acquiring an improved understanding of population wellbeing due to exposure to different healthcare forms.

References

Bandy, L., Adhikari, V., Jebb, S., & Rayner, M. (2019). The use of commercial food purchase data for public health nutrition research: A systematic review. PLoS One, 14(1), e0210192.

Borrell, L. N., Erwin, P. C., & Fiala, S. (2021). COVID-19, racism, and public health infrastructure. American Journal of Public Health, 111(S3), S172-S172.

MedlinePlus – Search Results for health disparities. Vsearch.nlm.nih.gov. (2022). Retrieved 29 September 29 September 2022, from https://vsearch.nlm.nih.gov/vivisimo/cgi-bin/query-meta?v%3Aproject=medlineplus&v%3Asources=medlineplus-bundle&query=health+disparities&_ga=2.43319781.1566140651.1513282447-676582744.1491403207.

Zapata, T., Buchan, J., & Azzopardi-Muscat, N. (2021). The health workforce: central to an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. European Journal of Public Health, 31(Supplement_3), ckab164-059.