Question

• Discuss how factors relating to biological and age-related risks, environmental risks, and behavioral risks contribute to family health and the achievement of healthy outcomes.
• Discuss activities that the nurse practicing in the community can implement to assist families to decrease health risks.

Answer 1

Biological factors include genetic variability, gender, nutritional status, etc has an impact on family health because any imbalance in these factors would affect the health of an individual. Some of the examples are below:

Some people carries a greater risk for cardiovascular diseases as they carry the same genes as their forefathers who have these diseases.

People who consume foods that lack vitamins and minerals, then they would face various health problems like anemia,rickets etc.

Age related risks include loss of memory, atherosclerosis leading to stroke and other CVS problems, osteoporosis leading to fractures which are the inevitable factors that affect family health.

Environmental factors that affect family health are high pollution areas,living in industrial area can lead to inhalation of toxic chemicals, people living in regions with less sunlight might have low vitamin D levels.

Finally, behavioural risks contributing to family health are smoking, alcohol consumption,drug abuse, lack of exercise, eating high fat and sugar content food.These have an ill effect on health as they lead to obesity, diabetes, liver and heart problems.

The following are the activities that the nurse practicing in the community can implement to assist families to decrease health risks:

• Conduct small meetings in the residence area and educate the people through visual aids, of that community regarding the common diseases, risk factors, causes etc.
• Distribute pamphlets that aid in better understanding about the diseases.
• Conduct health check ups weekly or monthly that include basic tests like checking vitals,blood sugar tests,HIV, HBV,HCV screenings, etc.
• Educating the community about the importance of immunization and reminding the families with infants and toddlers about their immunization schedules by calling them.