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Health Promotion and the North Coast DRIS Project
by Don Avant
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| Humboldt Del Norte Regional Council Meeting, August 1998 |
Visit the DRIS webpage on the internet and you will see “prevention and early intervention” listed among the seven characteristics that define the scope of the DRIS project. On the North Coast, prevention has been given such a high priority that if there were a North Coast Ten Commandments of Healthcare, it would be the first commandment. The importance of the subject has been reiterated time and again in public forums and in the discussions of the Humboldt-Del Norte Regional Health Council (RHC).
As an initial step in addressing the subject, the RHC has charged the Community Benefit Committee (CBC) with the task of defining the structure and goals of a prevention and early intervention program within the DRIS framework. The CBC has just begun to work on its charge. Currently it is giving consideration to a four-point plan for guiding this Initiative. The points include:
Responding to Individual Community Needs
The DRIS Project for the Humboldt-Del Norte region operates in six geographical areas where each is represented by a Community Health Committee (CHC). Each CHC has the mission of keeping the RHC informed about the health needs of its community and identifying health promotion opportunities for their respective communities. This approach is being considered instead of arbitrarily identifying a single region-wide project. It may turn out that all six CHCs have the same interest, but that determination should come from the bottom up according to the individual CHC's identified needs.
Coordinating With Other Healthcare Organizations
Health promotion activities are a hot topic on the North Coast. Consequently, several non-DRIS organizations have designated significant funding to health promotion. Lest precious resources be wasted, the RHC, through the DRIS process, has agreed that mechanisms for coordination will be established between the CHCs and other health providers engaged in health promotional campaigns within the Humboldt-Del Norte region.
Orienting/Training Community Health Committee Members
To ensure effective health promotion campaigns, there may be a need to orient and train CHC members in the organization and process used to conduct a health promotional campaign. The RHC hopes to secure resources from local foundations to assist the CHCs in training and preparing for their prevention projects.
Creating Effective Programs
The RHC believes that it is important to identify suitable measures to address program effectiveness for the promotion campaigns. Baseline data developed by governmental and other agencies will be relied upon to provide benchmarks for the program's effectiveness.
Central to the overall success of the Humboldt-Del Norte DRIS Initiative is the future integration of preventive health programs into the ongoing activities of the Administrative Service Organization now in the planning stages. Equally important to the overall success of the DRIS project is the maintenance of an involved and dynamic group of CHCs. The RHC believes that health promotion focused on individual communities and conducted by the CHCs is a means to this end. The enthusiasm of the members of the CHC leads the Community Benefit Committee of the RHC to expect success for its prevention and early intervention projects.
© CIRHM