The health promotion and teaching intervention developed for K.W., the 54-year-old African-American male patient with hypertension, was designed to help the patient improve his hypertension self-management skills. It utilized brochures and was later revised to utilize scripted teaching videos. This health promotion teaching intervention can be applied in the local Indianapolis community across the US and globally. This is because it utilized evidence-based strategies to improve the patient’s understanding of hypertension, including the risk factors of the condition and the necessary lifestyle changes required to control blood pressure. However, the intervention will require some modifications to meet the needs of various communities, whether in the US or at a global level.
Before it is implemented across the general population, the intervention will first need to identify certain characteristics of the targeted community. Information on the characteristics of the community, such as population demographics, is essential in modifying the intervention. Demographics such as age, sex and gender, race, language, culture, level of income, and the levels of education and literacy across the community influence the prevalence of hypertension across the population and regions (Zhou et al., 2021). These community demographics vary from community to community. Other considerations for modifying the intervention will include the accessibility of hypertension healthcare services and related resources for health promotion and teaching. Modifying the intervention as per the level of access to healthcare for each community will ensure that the best support is provided to overcome related health promotion and teaching challenges at the community level and improve community- and individual-level self-management skills. Therefore, the intervention will need to be modified to align with the characteristics of each community and make it more community-centered.
Zhou, B., Perel, P., Mensah, G. A., & Ezzati, M. (2021). Global epidemiology, health burden and effective interventions for elevated blood pressure and hypertension. Nature Reviews Cardiology 2021 18:11, 18(11), 785–802. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-021-00559-8