An Intervention Plan for Ensenada, Mexico

The analysis of the community health situation in Ensenada, Mexico highlighted some of the problems in that community, including environmental problems based both on internal practices and external policies. The intention in the following pages is to use the theoretical framework described in the analysis to devise an intervention for Ensenada.

Adapting the Medicine/Public Health Initiative

According to Cashman et al. (1999), this Initiative was designed in the United States to bring together professionals in both fields in order to address community health issues. The Initiative had six goals. Let us explore how each of these six goals could be adapted for the situation in Ensenada.

Engaging the community in the effort

Public health initiatives generally fail unless they include the input of the population concerned. Programs designed to deal with substance abuse, for example, generally involve ex-substance abusers and try to gain input from those currently abusing alcohol or drugs in order to understand the magnitude of the problem, the basis issues, and the kinds of interventions that are currently effective or ineffective.

This is more complicated and more of a long-term effort. For our purposes, and for the situation in Ensenada, it might be fruitful to develop joint training sessions, workshops, and seminars for community health people, doctors, nurses, and all oth

. . .
ic health, they may run into problems because certain foods are associated with a culture and with the full enjoyment of it. This does not mean that community health workers need to say that high fat foods are good for the heart, but that they need to work with the community to maintain important foods culturally, while adapting them to make them more healthful or otherwise altering the menu to make up for problem items. Joint effort to provide health care/joint effort in health assessment Again, I do not think the U.S. initiative went far enough in its thinking. I think the joint effort to provide health care, develop health assessment measures, and evaluate community health must also involve the entire community, not just public health and medical professionals. The Cluster Committee Community oriented primary care (COPC) is a model of health care delivery which utilizes a combined approach. Its foundation is community-oriented preventive medicine in combination with clinically-oriented, or clinically-based, preventive care. The focal points are the entire community, prevention, and clinically-based efforts. Thomas et al. (1995) described a method of creating COPC interventions in communities like Ensenada which disc
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Initiative United, Committee Community, Ensenada Engaging, Community Model, Community PACT, Education Center, Hartwig Landis, According Cashman, Ensenada Mexico, WH Fiscella, public health, community health, health care, cluster committee, situation ensenada, health workers, public health workers, primary care, professionals public, patients community, medical professionals, health care professionals, professionals public health, care professionals public, community-oriented primary care,
Approximate Word count = 1324
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)