Health Promotion Plan
Health promotion is the process of empowering the community to internalize behaviors promoting their health. According to the World Health Organization (2022), a health promotion plan is a wide range of social and environmental interventions that aim to protect public health and quality of life by addressing the root causes of ill health rather than focusing only on treatment and cure. Bullying is an important healthcare concern among communities. It causes psychosocial, physical, and educational distress to the targeted population. This assessment will analyze bullying as a healthcare concern, discuss related underlying uncertainties and behaviors, discuss the need for a healthcare promotion plan to address this issue and establish SMART goals to promote community health.
Scenario
Jake is a 12-year-old black boy who used to live in California with his parents. Last year his parents got divorced and his mother was granted full custody of Jake in the settlement. Jake moved to New York with his mother and started school there. He often complained to his mother he was having trouble making friends and adjusting and that some kids at school were bothering him. One day when Jake did not return home after school for several hours, his worried mother called the authorities. Jake was found physically assaulted and unconscious in an alley on his way home from school. He was rushed to the Emergency Room and underwent intensive treatment for his injuries for a week. It was later revealed by the authorities that he was beaten up by a group of children in his school. He ended up having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the incident and had to skip the school year to receive therapy and physical rehabilitation.
In-depth Analysis of the Healthcare Concern
Bullying is a common problem worldwide. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines bullying as a form of targeted violence or aggressive behavior towards youth by another group of youth who are not siblings or partners, that involves a perceived power imbalance and is likely to be repeated multiple times. Bullying is considered an adverse childhood experience (CDC, 2022). Bullying can take several forms. It can be physical (including hitting kicking shoving beating up or stealing from the victim) such as what happened to Jake or verbal bullying (such as teasing, insulting, slurs, threats, name-calling, and slurs). It may be in-person or online(cyber-bullying). Bullying can target the victim’s physical attributes, religion, culture, disability, or a combination of these factors. Sexual harassment is also considered a form of bullying (PREVnet, 2023). Unfortunately, bullying is very common. According to Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center (2023), In the United States, one in every five high school students reported being bullied in school and one in every six students was bullied online. A slightly higher portion of females (24%) reported getting bullied than their male peers (17%). 49.8% of tweens (9-12 years old) reported being bullied at school and 14.5% said they experienced bullying online.
NURS FPX 4060 Assessment 1 Health Promotion Plan
Bullying has several acute and long-term effects on both the perpetrator and the victim. It can cause anxiety or depression, psychosomatic issues, sleep problems, poor academic performance, and socialization issues for the victim. In the long term, it can give rise to problems such as stress-induced sickness, mental health problems such as depression with suicidal thoughts, difficulty forging relationships, PTSD (like with Jake), eating disorders, and panic attacks. For the bully, this behavior leads to poor academic performance, a high risk of substance abuse and participation in illegal activities, unemployment, and an increased risk of spousal or child abuse in the future (Advanced Psychiatry Associates, 2021). Thus, bullying should be viewed as an important healthcare concern that endangers the well-being of young people and should be dealt with through evidence-based strategies.
Underlying Assumptions and Uncertainties
This analysis incorporates assumptions regarding the perceived causes of bullying and the effects of certain interventions to address the issue. Central to the beliefs about bullying is that it comes from complex relationship dynamics. Bullying is still believed to be associated with stereotypical gender norms. It is also considered that cyberbullying is easy for bullies because they are anonymous and are not held accountable for the effect of their behavior on victims. However traditional bullying takes a greater toll on the victims but it can influence the bullies to reform by seeing the impact of their behavior firsthand (Mishna et al., 2021). This analysis however takes into context the two patterns of bullying behavior as socially marginal, abused, or troubled bullies vs sociopathic or narcissistic bullies (Faris & Felmlee, 2019). Increased visibility, supervision, environmental safety, and socioemotional competencies are believed to positively impact the reduction of bullying (Francis et al., 2022). These facts drive the role of better research and effective interventions to reduce bullying for a safe environment for all youth to thrive in.
Importance of Health Promotion
Bullying exerts psychological and physical stress on the victims in both the short and long term. Bullying in adolescents is associated with a significantly increased rate of mental health problems. Mental health problems are 4 times more likely to affect boys and 2.4 times more likely for girls who were bullied as compared to their nonbullied peers (Kallmen & Halgren, 2021). According to Warner (2021), in this digital age cyberbullying incidence has significantly increased (70%) which harms the well-being of adolescents and tweens. It negatively affects their mental health and may develop into Acute Stress Disorder or PTSD and in the long term may lead to poor psychosocial functioning and substance abuse. According to Galan et al. (2023), factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, sexual activity, sexual abuse, family, socioeconomic events, stress, and school performance were linked with bullying. Bullying can happen to anyone however ethnic or religious minority groups and refugees are most likely to be harassed (Sapouna et al., 2022). Black students make up 37% of all K-12 students being bullied in the United States which is significantly more than their white peers (Yang & McKnight, 2023). According to Kaminski (2020), about 23% of bullying allegations involve being harassed due to race. Youth belonging to minor ethnic, social, or religious classes are also more likely to be academically affected in case of a bullying incident as in the case with Jake. A healthcare promotion plan to address this worrying situation is thus necessary so that interventions to reduce bullying can be tailored to the specific needs of the most vulnerable populations.
Factors Contributing to Health Disparities
Many factors contribute to the increased victimization of ethnic minorities in bullying incidents. Bias-based victimization is one of these factors that cause increased bullying due to societal stigma (Xu et al., 2019). Many victims of bullying in these social groups also refrain from seeking help because of their self-perceived difference from their peers, due to the fear of not being believed or fear of making it worse, not knowing how to report the incident, or failure to recognize bullying at all (Gordon, 2021). These factors highlight the importance of a universally available all-inclusive plan to reduce bullying and ensure the health and safety of the youth.
SMART Goals
Regarding the prevention of bullying, evidence-based practices will be used to make SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) goals for effective outcomes. I will create a support group that will function as a safe space for victims, improve awareness about diversity and inclusion, create bully awareness campaigns, and harbor anti-bullying ambassadors. This will help create a safe and inclusive school environment, prevent bullying, and mitigate harm from potential incidents.
NURS FPX 4060 Assessment 1 Health Promotion Plan
Specific: An initiative to recruit and train people to be anti-bullying supervisors that will patrol the places the kids are more likely to be bullied. Flyers, posts, and literature will be published and distributed as part of bullying awareness and diversity inclusion campaigns. Bullying incidents will be reported and victims will be provided with support and counseling (Gordon & Blackburn, 2020)
Measurable: The number of people recruited and trained will be calculated. Engagement with awareness campaigns will be measured. A system for incident reports in person or online will measure cases of bullying (Kaufman et al., 2020)
Achievable: These goals will be easily achievable because they only require volunteers for educational campaigns and supervision, and will use online data-sharing for awareness and incident reports (Holt, 2024)
Relevant: These goals will be implemented as part of a safe school environment initiative and encourage parents, children, and teachers to participate to reduce bullying and improve the safety of all youth (Celdran et al., 2023)
Time-bound: The initiative will be monitored for efficacy at the end of the school year by a 30% decrease in bullying incident reports (Gaffney et al., 2019)
Conclusion
Bullying is an important healthcare concern worldwide that impacts the health and well-being of young people. It can happen to anyone but is more prevalent in ethnic and religious minorities, females, and the disabled. It is linked with an increased incidence of cause anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, psychosocial issues, substance abuse, and PTSD in victims. An integrated and inclusive plan to prevent bullying and mitigate its negative effects is now necessary more than ever.
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Students of Color are Disproportionately Bullied and Harassed at School