Detail section reference document

Hydration Advocacy Campaign

Health Advocacy Campaign

Part 1 Developing a Health Advocacy Campaign

Health advocacy programs are mostly tailored to specific groups of people that are in need of special attention. While this approach can be useful, simple approaches are sometimes more effective and can address widespread problems more economically and efficiently. The importance and simplicity of water and its role within our health and well being represents an approach of basic health advocacy and may target many in need of such information. Health advocates must look out for their patients and subscribe to the most important issues of the day that may have a deep and profound impact on healing the individual and the healing processes that can evolve in and throughout the community.

The purpose of this health advocacy development plan is to argue that the issue of hydration, for all people, is one of the most significant issues in preventative health care. This advocacy plan, targeted to everyone, will urge the importance of adequate drinking water and hydration efforts, in general, to decrease the state of disease and ill health consuming many people in today's sick world. The simple idea of hydration is necessary as many of the diseases and illnesses are significantly compounded by the lack of proper hydration practices and knowledge of the importance of water and its impact on the body's ability to function at healthy levels of operation.

Problem Identification

While the temptations of science and medicine is to always dig deeper and find increasingly complex and sophisticated means of describing their investigations, there are often simple solutions that lay in plain view. The issue of hydration and water intake as a means of reducing illness is often overlooked due to its simple approach and cost effective measures. The evidence suggests however, that this is not a good idea, as the importance of water, and the encouragement to stay hydrated may have large scale and sweeping effects on the health of those who adhere to such guidance.

Manz & Wentz (2005) were explicit in their understanding of the problem when they wrote " there is increasing evidence that mild dehydration may play a role in various morbidities. Good hydration has been shown to reduce the risk of urolithiasis, constipation, exercise asthma, hypertonic dehydration in the infant, and hyperglycemia in diabetic ketoacidosis, and is associated with a reduction in UTIs, hypertension, fatal coronary heart disease, venous thromboembolism and cerebral infarct. " These conclusions were gathered from their investigative study into the impacts of hydration and disease.

Popkin et al. (2010) supported many of these claims with their own meta analysis of the literature extant on the subject. They concluded that "given the extreme variability in water needs that are not solely based on differences in metabolism, but also on environmental conditions and activities, there is not a single level of water intake that would assure adequate hydration and optimum health for half of all apparently healthy persons in all environmental conditions." It is clear that a problem exists in the fact that hydration awareness is low and there is not enough encouragement or knowledge to support good hydration habits because they vary from climate to climate and region to region.

Plan Development

The health advocacy plan that will be developed will be general in nature and suggest that hydration habits are important in regulation strong health and well being. The approach of this plan is not offer any hard and straight guidelines for how much water to drink, due to the subjective nature of the practice. Rather this advocacy effort will focus on the individual becoming aware of their own responsibility to regulate the correct amount of water intake to maintain their own level of optimal health. The plan intends to inform, as many people within the targeted population as possible about the healing properties of water and how proper hydration practices may contribute to a healthier life.

The health advocacy plan is a simple public awareness campaign that can be promoted in various ways, but beginning in local hospitals and health centers. Hydration must become an important issue in preventative health and these environments can be useful places of spreading the word and advocating for greater hydration health practices.

Establishing Support

Establishing support for this endeavor will require some resources that involve assembling literature, distributing information and holding formal gatherings that will espouse the benefits of proper hydration practices. Support from this plan can be created by the simplicity and effectiveness of its inherent value. There may be anticipated backlash by those who do not feel such simple approaches are valued in modern allopathic methods and some resistance should be expected.

Support is expected to grow and evolve along with the success of the plan itself. Success breeds success and taking advantage of small gains can help garner support in many key areas. Garnering support amongst peers is very important as this effort can gain considerable strength using nursing professionals as a base for such improvements. While the eventually support of the surrounding community is eventually targeted, growing from within is the preferred approach to establishing a support network.

Part II Legal Considerations

Advocacy and Law

This advocacy plan does not mean to operate primarily through legal or legislative channels and will use them in only a supplementary fashion. The main ideal behind this plan is based on self-care and preventative health. Direct advocacy through political channels tends to undermine the essence of this message and can distract from its objectives and goals.

Current Legal Issues

Hydration and water are the main focus of this advocacy plan, and legislation can be used in an indirect manner in order to assist in making the transformation to a more water-focused environment. The quality of our water and environment contributes to the psychological relationship with those in the environment taking in the water. It is essential that clean drinking water be mandated within legal limitations. This basic human right needs to be continually addressed as newly discovered pollutants are routinely discovered and our water supply must be of high quality.

The current legal landscape is very complex and crowded. The impacts from legislation take long periods of time to come into direct impact to a problem in many cases. This suggests that the prudent approach in any advocacy plan, but specifically this one, is that the legal system cannot be fully depended on to ensure that meaningful and effective transformation will take place and address the important issues health advocates are attempting to rectify through their own efforts.

Influencing Legislation

McRae et al. (2007) explained that nurses may play a pivotal role in environmental issues such as ensuring clean drinking water. They wrote "True responsibility for protecting the health care environment lies with each one of us. Whatever type of nursing a nurse performs, he or she can make a difference by paying attention to health care waste management. Florence Nightingale also wrote about the need for pure and clean water to promote health and healing. Nurses are often taught about the importance of hydration for patients, but are seldom taught how to protect and secure a clean water source in health care facilities and at home. There is an increasing need to attend to the safety of our water supply especially as the number and types of contaminants often found in water increase. "

Nurses can address this issue at the most local level to avoid many of the legal problems that are associated with such advocacy efforts. Ensuring that each nurse practices hydration efforts that promote healthy living is the first step in minimizing the reliance on the legal system to make significant change. Leadership is necessary for this effort to sustain itself, and when nurses can influence those around them represented by their peers, then true growth and transformation may take place. Building slowly from the inside out can create the necessary foundations and strength to resist the predictable resistance that often accompanies such concerted efforts that attempt to disrupt the status quo.

This advocacy effort will avoid addressing the three legs of lobbying in this instance because they do not apply in a very productive manner due to the nature of the health care issue and its fundamental reliance on increasing self dependence on one's own health status.

Anticipated Obstacles

The legal system is full of obstacles that describe the current challenges of implanting designed change through legal advocacy. In many instances this power should be used as a supplemental force due to the inherent obstacles that are created during such legal struggles and litigation. The impact of health care and its synthesis with law has not proved to be very successful in many instances and the obstacles towards change that can be modified in a more productive manner are located within the nurses' local environment primarily.

Education and knowledge are the best defense against ignorance and obstacles towards better understanding and healing efforts. Before engrossing the advocacy effort in a mired battle of legal wits that can be very draining to resources, simple policies that are more easily changed at local health centers and hospitals are much better targets for advocacy efforts that are interested in finding a more successful means of navigating this battle.

Part III Ethical Considerations

Ethical Issues

The healer within our society plays a special role. The nature of or social structure also puts the situation into a context due to the liberties and freedoms that our collective shares. Enforcing ones' will on another must be done in the most ethical and highest esteemed manner possible to guarantee the future success and reputation of health care professionals that attempt to practice health advocacy issues.

Schwartz (2002) explained that the role of health care professional and its role relating to patient advocacy is not clear and there are many nuances that may affect the particular circumstance. He argued that "It remains unclear what patient advocacy actually entails and what values it ought to embody. It will be useful to ascertain whether advocacy means supporting any decision the patient makes, or if the advocate can claim to represent the patient by asserting well-intentioned paternalistic claims on the patient's behalf. This is especially significant because the position of advocate brings with it certain privileges on the basis of presumed insight into patient-perceived interests, namely, entitlement to take part in clinical decision making and increased professional standing."

The insight discussed by Schwartz is a very delicate issue where the individual's rights must be taken into account. The specifics of a hydration advocacy plan are not as invasive as other more direct plans that call for radical transformation and upheaval. Rather, the subtlety and simplistic nature of this plan, which calls upon the individual to take it upon themselves to regulate and emphasize their water intake as they see fit, suggests that the many of the ethical challenges that accompany advocacy plans do not apply in this case.

Ethics Laws

The lawfulness of this plan should be taken into account before implementation. By all reasonable standards, this plan does not infringe on any ethics laws proposed by any medical governing body, or politically representative body as well. Bioethics as a practice is important and needs to be addressed in any advocacy plan. The ethical application of the aforementioned circumstances demonstrate the need for ethics laws, best clinical practices and issues and strategy all are aligned in the proper order and resonate with support with one another.