The Disparities in the Provision of Health Services in the Modern Society Free Essay Example, 2750 words

To formulate and implement a health need analysis of disadvantaged children, there are certain core elements that those involved should be conversant with and address conclusively. First, HNA must identify the unmet health care and health requirements of these children and their families so that only the interventions that would provide for such needs are formulated and implemented. In other terms, an HNA should serve to improve the health of children and families in disadvantaged areas by allowing for the effective planning of health service provision. Importantly, HNA should enable health care providers to set their priorities and develop their policies according to the health needs of the target patient or group of patient. It should be apparent by now that an HNA should not be implemented for the mere purpose of establishing the health status of disadvantaged children; rather, HNA seeks to improve the health of these children and their parents by emphasizing the concept of incre asing the capacity of patients to benefit from intervention strategies (Cunningham Kemper, 1998). Regarding disadvantaged areas, health needs would refer to a population s abilities and capacity to benefit from whichever health interventions recommended, formulated and implemented by the authorities. We will write a custom essay sample on The Disparities in the Provision of Health Services in the Modern Society or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now Researches have confirmed that socio-economic disadvantage is largely associated with health and health needs of a population. However, the association between socioeconomic status and health is quite complicated and surrounded by quite a number of factors such as place of residence, education, income, health beliefs and behaviours and access to health services (Franks et al. , 2001). HNA thus requires that health care professionals define the health needs of socio-economically disadvantaged patients. The three forms of health needs that are observed in disadvantaged children/patients include the felt, normative and expressed health needs. These needs may interact at different levels in patients. For instance, while a health need may be felt and expressed by a patient, it may not necessarily be normative.