Health Promotion and the Clergy
By Rev. Dr. Nezer A. Soriano
The Problem
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is a growing problem but it is
preventable. Globally, 38 million of the 56 million deaths worldwide are due to
Non-Communicable diseases like hypertension. Around 48% of these deaths
happened before a person reached 70 years old. It is estimated that 80% of
premature heart disease, stroke and diabetes cases can be prevented (WHO, 2015) . The best preventive
way is to educate people and promote health.
A
2013 survey among United Methodist pastors in the US showed “40% of respondents
are obese and 39% are overweight—much higher percentages than a demographically-matched
sample of U.S. adults. Nearly 51% have high cholesterol, also much higher than
comparable benchmarks” (GBOPHB, 2013) .
The health education of each clergy member of a
particular region will be the health promotion activity effective for this NCD
program. The purpose of the campaign is to persuade hypertensive church pastors
to adopt a healthy lifestyle. This is best done by teaching individuals about
hypertension and equip them with skills how to prevent it.
The Solution
Health education is a health
promotion strategy that works well for influencing individual behavioral
change. Health education is often done with one-on-one or group or in classes.
Since the target audience are individual pastors, health education is an
appropriate strategy for pastors especially the hypertensive ones. These
pastors often had regular regional gatherings quarterly, thus a health
education activity will be feasible and doable when they gather.
The first step in planning health
education is to undertake a situational analysis (ILEP, 2015) . It is important to
identify problems which health education interventions are needed. Among
clergy, the problem might be the high number of pastors who have uncontrolled
hypertension. After identifying the problem, the next step would be to decide
which kind of intervention is best to achieve the objective (ILEP, 2015) . In this step, it is
important to identify the target group and know their characteristics including
age, education and behavior. For the pastors, uncontrolled hypertension may be
concentrated among high risk male pastors age 40 to 55 years old. Health
education activities may then be directed towards educating them of the
importance of reducing the modifiable risk factors of NCDs including weight
loss, physical activity, cholesterol level and drinking/smoking habits.
The next step in planning health education is
to know what kind of intervention is to be given (ILEP, 2015) . This includes
choosing what message to emphasize and what medium to use. For the pastors who
regularly read their Bibles, a reading pamphlet with Bible verses or a devotion
guide integrated with health facts about hypertension will be an effective
tool. This can also be used as cues for adopting a healthy lifestyle. Part of
the strategy is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the
interventions to be used. Lastly, evaluating the health education interventions
should also be done to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy in reducing
hypertension cases among the clergy.
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