Write a 4000 words essay that critically analyses the underlying theory, supporting evidence base, aims, methods and outcomes
of three different health promotion interventions that address an issue of your choice e.g reducing road traffic accidents.
Identify Interventions
1. Underlying theory
Identify what the underlying concepts/ theoretical approaches are to each of your three interventions. You should be able to
write a thousand words situating each of your three interventions drawing on some of the conceptual frameworks discussed in
the theory lecture e.g. Naidoo and Wills capture the basic conceptual elements of all HP theory in the descriptive schema:
• Medical,
• Educational,
• Behavioural Change,
• Empowerment and
• Social Change.
Which of these categories best describes the interventions you have chosen? Why? Can you elaborate
further by linking this to more complex, broader explanations of the type of intervention.
• What are the epistemological elements of the intervention e.g how does it conceptualise knowledge of the health
phenomenon it is intervening on. Is it based on what the people who will be the recipients of the intervention think and feel
about their situation (a subjectivist view of how knowledge is constructed), or is it based on objective measurements of a
situation such as epidemiological and other measures (an objectivist view of how knowledge is constructed)?
• What concept does the intervention have of the society in which the intervention is taking place? (Core view of
society) Is the intervention about social change, or is it about psychological/ behavioural change of individuals?
• An intervention therefore has implicit or perhaps explicit assumptions to do with what it considers to be the
principle source of health problems. Where do health problems come from? Are they a consequence of the broader socio-economic
environment or are they more localised at the level of poor individual choices? Again the theory lecture contains a wide
spectrum of information to draw on. The questions you need to address are:
• what are you trying to do?
• how is it supposed to work?
• what needs to be in place for it to work?
2. Evidence base
The lectures on Evidence and Evaluation should provide
you with the necessary information to consider the various issues around the question of evidence. When you critically assess
an intervention it is useful to bear in mind that it is the theory that selects the evidence rather than the other way round
of common sense. In other words one usually has an explanation, or a set of assumptions, no matter how basic, about why people
behave as they do. We then cite whatever evidence we are aware of to justify our assumptions/ explanation of the phenomenon.
An example: Smoking behaviour is a problem of addiction as evidenced by the studies on nicotine addiction and the struggle
individual smokers have in quitting. Consequently the medical and behavioural change approaches best describe the sort of
intervention likely to work. On the other hand some of us believe that smoking behaviour is better understood in relation to
social class inequalities and cite evidence of this in the social class gradient
distilled from various epidemiological studies. The sort of intervention prompted by this type of explanation is best
described by the categories of social change and perhaps empowerment. Can you write another 1000 words discussing the
following:
• For each of your three interventions what sort of evidence is there prompting the type of intervention?
• How robust is this evidence and do you consider it appropriate to justify the types of intervention?
• Do the different types of intervention draw on different kinds of evidence?
3. Aims of the intervention
Once you
have clarified 1 and 2 above, you need to consider:
• what are the aims of the various interventions you have selected?
• more importantly, are the aims consistent with (a) the theory underlying the intervention and (b) the evidence.
TASK 2
Consider the methods for delivery of the interventions
If you have completed the first task and successfully addressed each of the questions/ issues raised there, then you need to
reflect more carefully on the method/s used to deliver each of the interventions.
• (i) give a brief description of how the intervention is operationalized i.e. what are the methods it uses. Sessions 4
– 11 of the module assess a number of methods and approaches.
• (ii) are the methods used to deliver the intervention consistent with (a) the underlying theory and (b) the aims of
the intervention.
Example:
The aim of the intervention is to address inequalities in
health.
This is based on an underlying theory of social change
and empowerment.
This is to be achieved through a traditional health
education approach focused on providing
information to individuals. There is clearly a mismatch here in the methods used to deliver the intervention. Of course I
have used this example to highlight what is meant by a critical analysis. Many of the interventions you have selected may not
be so easily inconsistent in matching theory, aims and methods. Nevertheless you need to reflect critically on the strengths
and weaknesses of the methods used to deliver the intervention. It could be that while there is consistency between theory,
aims and methods that the intervention could be better delivered via an alternative method.
Outcome measures for your identified interventions
Referring back to the lecture on evaluation you will need to discuss
the various activities or inputs that each intervention undertook as
part of its method of delivery and what was the intended result. You
will then assess what was reported about the intervention in terms of
what happened as a result of these various activities and inputs.
Were their unintended results of significance. For example an
intervention designed to increase awareness of the harm from
substance misuse among adolescents in schools using a health
education approach.
To assess the outcome measures you will need to know:
1. Is what is being reported about what happened as a result of
the various activities consistent with the declared aims of the
intervention? If not why not?
2. Does the intervention have any sense of intermediate or
process outcomes? These are things that occur along the way
that point in the direction of the ultimate aim e.g. class room
discussions among students that suggest a better informed
student community, or peer led student mentoring groups
around the whole issue of drug taking.
3. How are the results of these activities measured? Are they
sufficiently robust?
Different approaches that use different methods will be interested in
measuring different outcomes. They may well have the same ultimate
goal of reducing morbidity and mortality and increasing the quality
of life, but at a more immediate and intermediate level they measure
different aspects of the problem. See Nutbeam’s framework of
different health outcomes to get a sense of this.
The task here is to be able to:
a) describe what each of the interventions inputs or activities are
and the resultant outcomes / outputs
b) in what way do these outcomes / outputs contribute towards
the intended aim or goal of the intervention?
c) how are these outcomes/outputs measured?
d) how convincing is all of this in relation to the intended goal?
Evaluation Plans and Assessing Effectiveness
Having identified the interventions’ outcome measures in the
previous task, you are in a position to describe and critically assess
the overall evaluation process and the effectiveness of the
interventions. You need to refer back to the lecture and reading on
Evaluation.
1. What sort ofmonitoring was in place to record the various
activities undertaken and what happened as a result of these
activities?
2. How were these recorded?
3. Is the account of the recorded results consistent with the aims
and underlying theory on which the interventions are based?
4. Do you consider the interventions to have been effective in
relation to their intended goals? Can you explain why or why
not?
5. What do you think the limitations / weaknesses are in the way
the interventions were evaluated?
The above points are provided as a way of critically engaging with a
discussion on the outcomes of the interventions. As such it is very
much linked to Task 3 and should not be attempted before a careful
consideration of the points raised in that task.
Place this order with us and get 18% discount now! to earn your discount enter this code: special18 If you need assistance chat with us now by clicking the live chat button.