The Importance of Networks in Designing Prevention Programs in Healthcare

The focus of prevention in the healthcare system by and large remains on the individual. The individual is informed about the disease or condition, then they are helped to understand that they have the power to change their behavior and therefore the health status.
 Good programs continue by then motivating and guiding individuals as they assimilate the information and begin to change their behavior.

Group prevention programs understand the importance of including the community, and the importance of peer self-help is widely recognized.
 Building a sense of community and increasing social support of the individual helps develop individualized solutions to particular problems that people within a community experience.

Building a network of support provides the community with a sustainable means of communicating solutions with diverse members of the community. People enjoy and derive distinct benefit from helping other people. It is an important part of a person's cultural life. Social support increases perceived self-efficacy.

Community Networks Enhances the Effects of Prevention
The foundational mechanism in encouraging motivation and action is perceived self-efficacy or the belief that behaviors will lead to certain outcomes in the future. Self-efficacy is the belief in one's own agency. Another way to state it is that it is the conviction that one can successfully execute behaviors required to produce the wanted outcomes.

People who have a strong sense of efficacy approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than threats to be avoided. Self-efficacy determines how much effort people will expend and how long they will persist in the face of obstacles and negative experiences.

Prevention Begins and Ends in the Home
The development of self-efficacy begins in the home, typically through vicarious experience and observation. Self-efficacy is learned from early age and is generally passed from the older generation to younger generations.

The sooner a person begins to engage in positive health behaviors, the less likely that a chronic disease will develop. Chronic illnesses develop over time. The influences within the home begin early and are reinforced by adults in the household.

The home provide an ideal setting to increase self-efficacy. If older people recognize the preventive role that can play with the extended family's healthcare, then they will be empowered to more conscientiously pass health behaviors on to the family of origin.

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