Mental Health Of Young People And Adolescents In Australia

At-risk paradigm

Discuss About The Mental Health Of Australia Young People And Adolescents.

According to the Faist (2013), at paradigm is a framework which contains the basic assumptions or patterns of thinking and other commonly accepted methodology used for addressing certain specific issues. The main purpose of this essay is to analyse a health promotion program under the umbrella of the at-risk paradigm and resilience paradigm. The chosen health promotion program under this context is youth food habits and obesity. The essay initiates via throwing a brief light on the overview of at-risk paradigm, resilience paradigm followed by the principles and ideas underlying the at-risk and resilience paradigm. The essay wills then attempt to explain the possible reason behind the shift of the overall paradigm concept over resilience from risk management. Finally the essay will analyse the chosen youth health promotion program under the context of resilience and at-risk paradigm and at the end the essay will summaries with on overview of the success of the chosen health promotion program in addressing health trends via employing qualitative and quantitative data.

In relation to paradigm, at risk-paradigm mainly highlights the factors or the individuals who are more prone to get affected with the risk factor underlined by that particular paradigm (Lerner, Whang & Nipper, 2013).

A resilience paradigm is defined a particular framework that help communities or an individual not just to mitigate or heal the overall damage but also a distinct path to thrive (Wulff, Donato & Lurie, 2015). Some of the common steps which are undertaken under the resilience paradigm include monitoring, responding, anticipating and learning (Woods, 2017).

Figure: Different aspects of resilience paradigm

(Source: Fairbanks et al., 2014)

According to O’Hara and Isden (2013), the main principles of at-risk paradigm in relation of health care is proper assessment of the risk factors for adequate measurement and monitoring of safety. This can comprehensibly defined as healthcare risk assessment which is commonly known as health risk appraisal and/or health and well-being assessment. It is widely employed screening tools for multi-component health promotion programs. The main parameters utilised in health risk assessment under at-risk paradigm include demographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, family/personal history, physiological parameters and willingness to change the behaviours in order to improve health (O’Hara & Isden, 2013).

No single domain can comprehensively explain the principles associated with resilience paradigm. According to Wulff, Donato and Lurie (2015), resilience in health care is a function of not only of economic prosperity and community competence but also encompasses the individuals’ state of mental and physical health along with the social connections and collaboration of government entities for successful recovery from the health complications.

Resilience paradigm

Resilience is about how fast a community can bounce back to their initial position during a public health emergency (Epstein & Krasner, 2013). In other words, it can be said that resilience paradigm goes far beyond the risk management in order to address the complexities of integrated system of health and the uncertainty associated with future threats (Epstein & Krasner, 2013). Though resilience is conceptually messy, it is at present gaining prime importance in the present day scenario. According to Wulff, Donato & Lurie (2015), by the end of 2050, at least 75% of the global population will survive in increasingly dense and large urban areas. This significant demographic shift is associated with change in demands of the urban infrastructure, health structure and the ability of the different organisational sectors to satisfy the needs of the residents in a comprehensive manner. As the groups of population will aggregate at an increasing rate, the overall consequences of failure in healthcare system will be more catastrophic (Chassin & Loeb, 2013). Thus only assessing the risk factors or the highlighting the susceptible communities which are prone to get endangered with the risk will not be comprehensive in tackling the overall risk.  Chassin and Loeb (2013) argued that although different sectors define the important components of resilience with a different approach, it is obvious that no single approach is capable of reflecting what is enable the community to successfully withstand the stress of a community disaster or a healthcare care and thereby improving the quality of life in the aftermath. Here comes the importance of the concept of comprehensive resilience paradigm in comparison to the at-risk paradigm (Chassin & Loeb, 2013).

In relation to shift in the concept of paradigm from risk management and resilience, Fairbanks et al. (2014) is of the opinion that resilience is important for the systems which are buffered by a combination of both usual and unusual demands; environmental disruptions; conflicted goals; variations in staffing or other resources and certain critically incessant change. It is the resilience of the particular systems that provides them the ability of generates success in spite of conditions that can easily lead towards failure – and that enables them for quick recovery and safety even after encountering failure. Thus resilience is evolving as a better paradigm in comparison to at-risk paradigm in high stakes domains which are at substantial risk and where workloads and operational tempos vary widely. The domains where resilience is gradually gaining importance include healthcare sectors or more specifically operating rooms, ICUs, clinics and other home care settings, military mission and air traffic control rooms (Fairbanks et al., 2014).

Principles of at-risk paradigm in relation to health

Another important aspect of shift towards resilience paradigm is, resilience paradigm does not simply encompass success in the face of threat of failure. Although, resilience paradigm can and at times does fail, they represents a repertoire of behaviours like qualitative shifts in performance in relation to varying demands, meaningful responses represented by goal trade-offs and a tenacity of efforts to answer even when confronted via increasing demands or existential threats (Woods. 2017). Woods (2017) argued that resilient paradigm forestall failure, dodge failure or attempts to redirect failure to make the recovery smooth, easy and less costly. This highlights a sharp difference with at-risk paradigm because at-risk paradigm only states the risk factors but does not provides any direct overview of how to successful overcome those risk factors.  

Resilience paradigm is also gaining importance in the health care. some of the few notable examples of resilience include effective integration of an emergency surgery uner busy schedule; response towards failure of automated instruments in emergency department, work overload in healthcare and response to a suicide bus-bombing under an urban context. Although all these are not related events, they still represent the common traits of resilience. In each of these special cases, individuals seek to manage the temporary disturbance that represents itself as disruption in work (Fairbanks et al., 2014).

Figure: Examples of resilience paradigm in healthcare

(Source: Fairbanks et al., 2014)

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing significantly in Australia for the last two decades. According to the National Health Survey (2004 – 2005), nearly 3 out of 10 Australian children and young people are either over-weight or obese. The reason behind this is unhealthy eating habits (Australian Government, 2009).

(Source: Australian Government, 2009)

The selected health promotion program on youth obesity is drafted over several different objects in order to successfully address the health concern. The main objectives of the youth obesity health promotion program, are discussed in details in the table below.

(Source: Australian Government, 2009)

The main health trend that is addressed by the selected health promotion program, “Australia: The Healthiest Country by 2020” by Australian Government: Preventative Health Taskforce is obesity in Australia with a special mention to the youth of Australia. This is because, according to Sanders et al. (2015), the gain in weight is mostly common among the younger population of Australia. O’Dea and Dibley (2014) highlighted that the Australians who are aged in between 14 to 18 years consume more than 40% of their total daily energy via consuming junk food and sugary drinks. Another reason cited behind the increased trends in obesity if high consumption of alcohol.

Principles of resilience paradigm in relation to health

The selected health promotion program has adopted resilience program via not only accessing the risk of the youth of developing obesity but also guides through the proper selection of the control measures that will be helpful in reducing weight and other threats associated with obesity (Australian Government, 2009). Moreover, the health promotion program also aims to create an environment via working with young people and diverse partners that increase resilience along with social connections of young people residing in Australia (Australian Government, 2009). The potential initiatives and obesity prevention approaches taken in this health promotion program will provide the youth of Australia the ability of cope up with the adversity of obesity (Ball et al., 2012).

Conclusion

Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that adopting resilience paradigm in health promotion program helps to achieve the desired outcomes at the population level in comparison to the at-risk paradigm health promotion approach. Proper resilience paradigm provides proper risk management schemes which help the target group population to bounce back to the healthy condition once again via overcoming the health-related complications.

For example, mental health promotion among the Australian youth mostly provides emphasis on the prevalence of the mental health problems, depressive disorders associated with mental health and health-related quality of life in mental health (Government of Australia – Department of Health, 2000). Thus it can clearly be seen that the mental health promotion program is based on at-risk paradigm and hence the success rate is must more compromise in comparison to the obesity prevention program among the Australian youth as undertaken by the government of Australia. The outcome of the at-risk based paradigm in mental health is Australian youth is not satisfactory this is because according to reports published by Charis Chang in News.com.au (2018), the mental health trend in Australia is still disturbing with an increase trends in suicidal attempts among the Australian youth. This report coincides with the statistics of Australian Government (2016) which highlights that 14% of Australian youth suffers anxiety and major depressive disorders. However, the obesity and change in food habit prevention health care program which is based on resilience paradigm is a huge success. According to the Australian Government (2017), metropolitan obesity index among the younger population of Australia have decreased considerably in comparison to the previous year statistics. In northern Sydney, youth obesity % is 53.4 (earlier % = 73.3).

Overall it can be said that resilience paradigm must be selected as the main mode of health promotion program and which will eventually help the target group of to bounce back to normal life via overcoming all the complexities.

References

Australian Government (2017) Healthy Communities: Overweight and obesity rates across Australia, management. Access date: 16^th May. Retrieved from:   https://www.myhealthycommunities.gov.au/our-reports/overweight-and-obesity-rates/december-2016

Australian Government. (2016). 5.5 Mental health of Australia’s young people and adolescents. Access date: 16^th May. Retrieved from:  https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/42e2f292-4ebb-4e8d-944c-32c014ad2796/ah16-5-5-mental-health-australias-young-people-adolescents.pdf.aspx

Australian Government., (2009). Australia: The Healthiest Country by 2020. Australian Government: Preventative Health Taskforce. Access date: 16^th May. Retrieved from: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/preventativehealth/publishing.nsf/content/E233F8695823F16CCA2574DD00818E64/$File/obesity-jul09.pdf

Ball, K., Abbott, G., Cleland, V., Timperio, A., Thornton, L., Mishra, G., … & Crawford, D. (2012). Resilience to obesity among socioeconomically disadvantaged women: the READI study. International journal of obesity, 36(6), 855.

Chassin, M. R., & Loeb, J. M. (2013). High?reliability health care: getting there from here. The Milbank Quarterly, 91(3), 459-490.

Epstein, R. M., & Krasner, M. S. (2013). Physician resilience: what it means, why it matters, and how to promote it. Academic Medicine, 88(3), 301-303.

Fairbanks, R. J., Wears, R. L., Woods, D. D., Hollnagel, E., Plsek, P., & Cook, R. I. (2014). Resilience and resilience engineering in health care. Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety, 40(8), 376-383.

Faist, T. (2013). The mobility turn: a new paradigm for the social sciences?. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(11), 1637-1646.

Government of Australia – Department of Health, (2000). Mental health of young people in Australia. Access date: 16^th May. Retrieved from:  https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/mental-pubs-m-young

Lerner, H., Whang, J., & Nipper, R. (2013). Benefit-risk paradigm for clinical trial design of obesity devices: FDA proposal. Surgical endoscopy, 27(3), 702-707.

O’Dea, J. A., & Dibley, M. J. (2014). Prevalence of obesity, overweight and thinness in Australian children and adolescents by socioeconomic status and ethnic/cultural group in 2006 and 2012. International journal of public health, 59(5), 819-828.

O’Hara, J., & Isden, R. (2013). Identifying risks and monitoring safety: the role of patients and citizens. London: The Health Foundation.

Sanders, R. H., Han, A., Baker, J. S., & Cobley, S. (2015). Childhood obesity and its physical and psychological co-morbidities: a systematic review of Australian children and adolescents. European journal of pediatrics, 174(6), 715-746.

Woods, D. D. (2017). Essential characteristics of resilience. In Resilience civil engineering (pp. 33-46). CRC Press.

Wulff, K., Donato, D., & Lurie, N. (2015). What is health resilience and how can we build it?. Annual review of public health, 36, 361-374.

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