NURS FPX 6026 Assessment 3 Population Health Policy Advocacy

Name

Capella university

NURS-FPX 6026 Biopsychosocial Concepts for Advanced Nursing Practice 2

Prof. Name

Date

Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy 

Title: Policy Proposition to Address Obesity in Low-Income African American Communities: Advocating an Integrated Health Model

Introduction

I am writing to recommend a policy initiative to address obesity in low-income African American communities for consideration in the International Journal of Obesity. The policy highlights an integrated health model combining nutrition, physical activity, and mental health support to tackle obesity’s root causes, such as food insecurity, limited healthcare access, and socioeconomic barriers.

With nearly 50% of African American adults experiencing obesity, the proposal advocates for an interprofessional approach involving nurses, dietitians, public health experts, and mental health professionals. Key interventions include expanding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, promoting physical activity, and providing mental health services. This policy aims to reduce obesity rates, improve health outcomes, and promote health equity through sustainable, culturally competent solutions tailored to underserved populations.

Keywords: Obesity, health equity, low-income communities, interprofessional collaboration, African American health

Evaluation of the Current State of Obesity Care and Identification of Knowledge Gaps

Obesity rates in low-income African American communities are disproportionately high, with nearly 50% of adults affected, particularly women. Systemic barriers like limited healthcare access, food deserts, and insufficient recreational spaces worsen obesity and related chronic conditions like hypertension and type 2 diabetes (Lofton, 2023). Although initiatives like SNAP aim to address these issues, the quality of care remains inadequate. Many interventions fail to integrate cultural tailoring, healthcare, mental health support, and community engagement. It leads to fragmented care that neglects the root causes of obesity. National benchmarks, such as those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), emphasize widespread obesity prevention strategies, but performance in these communities falls short (CDC, 2024 ).

Poor health outcomes are perpetuated by the lack of integrated culturally competent care, leading to increased rates of preventable diseases, a rise in healthcare costs, and a generally degraded quality of life. In addition, significant gaps in knowledge remain concerning the effects of mental health services and community-based interventions, such as urban gardens and mobile clinics, on obesity outcomes. Additional research is required to evaluate the effectiveness of such integrated approaches over the long term and develop scalable solutions for the underserved population (Darling et al., 2023). Closure of these gaps will translate to effective policies on reducing obesity and health disparities. Interventions that will consider biological, psychological, and social causes of obesity and be culturally competent could help alleviate health inequity and improve outcomes while fostering a sustainable and continuous process toward health improvement for the poor African American community.

Analysis of the Necessity for Health Policy Development

The status quo of obesity management among low-income African American communities underlines the urgency in the development of health policy. Food deserts, poor access to health services, and lack of places for recreation contribute to a high burden of such conditions as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, which urge a policy intervention. Current initiatives like SNAP fail to address the complicated nature of obesity, often lacking integration of healthcare, mental health support, and community engagement (Houghtaling et al., 2022). This fragmentation worsens the challenges of addressing obesity by underscoring the need for complete policies targeting root causes and environmental factors contributing to poor health outcomes.

Health policy development is essential to improve care by implementing an Integrated Health Model that connects healthcare, mental health, and community-based solutions (Halberstadt et al., 2023). Such a model will ensure culturally relevant and sustainable interventions, integrating programs like mobile clinics, urban gardens, and nutrition education to deliver more equitable health care. Advocacy for policy is essential in bringing systemic change, or else fragmented care will result in poor health outcomes and increase healthcare costs in their never-ending cycle. Policies support the scale of interventions, reducing health inequities within underserved communities. Only this collaborative, multi-faceted approach will improve obesity care and health consequences for these populations.

Justification for the Developed Policy in Enhancing Obesity 

The proposed policy to address obesity in low-income African American communities is vital for improving the quality of care and health outcomes. It addresses the root causes of obesity, socioeconomic disparities, food insecurity, and lack of physical activity. By enhancing initiatives such as urban gardens, SNAP, and mobile health clinics, the policy will provide a complete solution through an Integrated Health Model, which combines healthcare, mental health, and community engagement (Houghtaling et al., 2022). Evidence from similar programs, like school-based nutrition programs and urban garden initiatives. They support the effectiveness of this approach in improving health outcomes (Davis et al., 2021).

Moreover, the embedding of mental health services into the practice has to be ensured, given that emotional eating and stress stand as colossal contributors to obesity. Available literature indicates that including mental health services in obesity interventions results in superior long-term outcomes (Darling et al., 2023). This approach will ensure that the policy tackles not only the physical component of obesity but also the psychological factors contributing to it. While some may claim that policy alone cannot solve obesity, evidence highlights that individual-level interventions cannot overcome systemic barriers alone (Lofton, 2023). By addressing these barriers, the policy will provide sustainable and scalable solutions. It ensures equitable access to health resources. Advocating for this policy will help reduce health disparities, improve care access, and promote long-term health improvements for underserved populations.

Advocacy for Policy Implementation in Diverse Care Settings 

Expanding policy development beyond the proposed urban community settings is essential for addressing obesity in low-income African American populations. Policies enacted in other care settings, for example, schools, workplaces, and healthcare systems, can greatly enhance the effects of community-based initiatives. Hospitals and primary care in healthcare settings, including obesity prevention and management, can offer seamless care, complementing other community initiatives such as mobile health clinics and urban gardens.

For instance, health providers can utilize screening and counseling to identify and address obesity early when interventions are more effective (Stapelfeldt et al., 2024). Wider policy development builds on the consistency of care, bridging gaps between communities and clinical settings. This ensures that those individuals receive comprehensive care across environments for a more sustainable approach to obesity. The other policies will be implemented through schools and workplaces, ensuring that younger populations and adults influence healthier habits in key settings where people spend most of their time. 

The expansion of policy development would bring about a systemic change in how healthcare approaches obesity and other health inequities. This will be through broad, integrated approaches to ensure increased access to resources, supportive environments, and reduced health disparities. However, funding, coordination among different stakeholders, and ensuring cultural competence in such policies present challenges that must be overcome. Despite these challenges, comprehensive policy development will enhance health outcomes, promote equity, and assure long-term health benefits for underserved populations.

Interprofessional Aspects of a Developed Policy

The proposed policy to address obesity in low-income African American communities is built on an interdisciplinary approach involving nursing, nutrition, mental health, social work, and public health. Patients will receive comprehensive solutions from nurses supervising most care coordination and education. The importance of nutrition therapy and improving clients’ access to healthy food will remain a priority for dietitians, for instance, through establishing urban gardening. The mental health workers will talk about depression, anxiety, and stress, which are the main root causes of obesity in these places (Darling et al., 2023).

Effective population-level approaches will be led predominantly by public health professionals, including school policies and workplace programs. The interdisciplinary team ensures that the services are integrated across multiple settings to create a unified care system, ensuring that the desired outcomes are achieved efficiently and effectively (Alderwick et al., 2021). The integrated health model addresses the physical, mental, and social factors of obesity by tailoring interventions to the population’s needs. However, challenges remain regarding the scalability and sustainability of these interventions in resource-limited areas. Long-term effects and adaptability to different environments could be further researched in these strategies to help in policy refinement, ensuring long-term success with the reduction of obesity and its associated health disparities.

Conclusion

This policy seeks to address obesity in low-income African American communities by providing integrated health care, mental health support, and community-based solutions. Effective, sustainable interventions are ensured through interprofessional collaboration. By addressing the root causes, the policy promotes health equity. It is supposed to bring about long-term, systemic change in underserved populations.

References 

Alderwick, H., Hutchings, A., Briggs, A., & Mays, N. (2021). The impacts of collaboration between local health care and non-health care organizations and factors shaping how they work: A systematic review of reviews. BMC Public Health, 21(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10630-1 

CDC. (2024). Obesity Strategies: What Can Be Done. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/php/about/obesity-strategies-what-can-be-done.html 

Darling, K. E., Hayes, J. F., Evans, E. W., Sanchez, I., Chachra, J., Grenga, A., Elwy, A. R., & Jelalian, E. (2023). Engaging stakeholders to adapt an evidence-based family healthy weight program. Translational Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibac113 

NURS FPX 6026 Assessment 3 Population Health Policy Advocacy

Davis, J. N., Pérez, A., Asigbee, F. M., Landry, M. J., Vandyousefi, S., Ghaddar, R., Hoover, A., Jeans, M., Nikah, K., Fischer, B., Pont, S. J., Richards, D., Hoelscher, D. M., & Van Den Berg, A. E. (2021). School-based gardening, cooking and nutrition intervention increased vegetable intake but did not reduce BMI: Texas sprouts – A cluster randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-021-01087-x 

Halberstadt, J., Koetsier, L. W., Sijben, M., Stroo, J., van der Velde, M., van Mil, E. G. A. H., & Seidell, J. C. (2023). The development of the Dutch “national model integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity.” BMC Health Services Research, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09284-z 

Houghtaling, B., Englund, T., Chen, S., Pradhananga, N., Kraak, V. I., Serrano, E., Harden, S. M., Davis, G. C., & Misyak, S. (2022). Supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP)-authorized retailers received a low score using the business impact assessment for obesity and population-level nutrition (BIA-Obesity) tool. BMC Public Health, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13624-9 

NURS FPX 6026 Assessment 3 Population Health Policy Advocacy

Lofton, H., Ard, J. D., Hunt, R. R., & Knight, M. G. (2023). Obesity among African American people in the United States: A review. Obesity, 31(2), 306–315. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.23640 

Stapelfeldt, P. M., Sina, & Kerkemeyer, L. (2024). Assessing the accessibility and quality of mobile health applications for the treatment of obesity in the German healthcare market. Frontiers in Health Services, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2024.1393714 

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