Individual Health Promotion: Diabetes and COVID-19
This paper examines two significant public health concerns — type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 — through an individual health promotion lens. It identifies key risk factors for each condition, outlines health protective behaviors at both individual and interpersonal levels, and highlights relevant informational resources including the CDC and the American Diabetes Association. The paper then analyzes barriers that impede prevention efforts, including low health literacy and socioeconomic disadvantage in the case of diabetes, and PPE shortages and public ignorance in the case of COVID-19. For each barrier identified, the paper proposes concrete strategies at community, governmental, and organizational levels to improve health outcomes.
- Introduction: Selecting the Health Issues: Rationale for choosing diabetes and COVID-19
- Risk Factors for Diabetes and COVID-19: Key demographic and behavioral risk factors identified
- Health Protective Factors and Preventive Behaviors: Individual and interpersonal prevention strategies
- Resources for Managing Both Conditions: CDC, journals, and disease-specific organizations
- Barriers to Prevention and Proposed Solutions: Literacy, income, PPE shortages, and ignorance addressed
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper maintains a clear parallel structure throughout, analyzing both health conditions (type 2 diabetes and COVID-19) side by side under each thematic section, making comparison straightforward and coherent.
- It moves logically from identification of health issues to risk factors, then protective behaviors, then resources, and finally barriers — demonstrating sound organizational scaffolding appropriate to a health promotion framework.
- The paper grounds its claims in cited evidence, referencing peer-reviewed sources such as Cavanaugh (2011) and Jaacks et al. (2016) alongside authoritative bodies like the CDC, lending credibility to its arguments.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively employs a problem–solution structure in its barriers section. For each obstacle identified — whether low health literacy, income constraints, PPE shortages, or public ignorance — the author follows up with a corresponding practical intervention. This technique demonstrates applied public health reasoning and shows the student can move from analysis to actionable recommendation.
Structure breakdown
The paper is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains four sequential sections covering health issue selection, risk factors, protective behaviors, and available resources. Part 2 shifts to an integrative discussion of barriers and solutions for both conditions. This two-part framework moves from descriptive analysis to applied problem-solving, reflecting a health promotion planning approach suitable for undergraduate health science coursework.
Introduction: Selecting the Health Issues
The two health issues selected for this discussion are type 2 diabetes and COVID-19. Type 2 diabetes (referred to simply as "diabetes" throughout) was selected because it is one of the most prevalent forms of the disease. Notably, multiple authors — including Jaacks, Siegel, Gujral, and Narayan (2016) — have termed type 2 diabetes a 21st-century epidemic. COVID-19 was selected because it is a current and evolving health issue that has affected millions of people worldwide. At the time of this writing, multiple countries were still struggling to contain this epidemic.
Risk Factors for Diabetes and COVID-19
A wide range of risk factors have been associated with diabetes. These include age, body weight, and ethnicity, among others. Those at greatest risk include people classified as obese, older individuals, persons from certain ethnic or racial backgrounds (such as Asian Americans, Hispanics, and Black Americans), those from families with a history of diabetes, and individuals who lead a sedentary lifestyle (Titchener, 2020).
When it comes to COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2020) identifies risk factors including crowding, age, preexisting medical conditions, gender, and ethnicity or race. Those most likely to contract severe illness include older persons, individuals with certain preexisting conditions (such as diabetes, hypertension, and HIV), and those who live or work in crowded environments.
Health Protective Factors and Preventive Behaviors
Certain health protective behaviors can help prevent each of the conditions identified. In the case of diabetes, individual-level factors include weight loss, adopting healthier eating habits, and increasing engagement in physical activity (Titchener, 2020). At the interpersonal level, protective factors include deliberate managerial decisions in the workplace to encourage physical activity — for example, by promoting stair use over escalators — as well as the adoption of healthier diets at the family level.
For COVID-19, individual protective behaviors include wearing a mask in crowded settings, frequent handwashing, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle to boost immune function. Interpersonal protective behaviors include social distancing and working from home whenever possible.
References
Bhowmick, S. (2020). Covid-19: Indian healthcare workers need adequate PPE. BMJ. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/19/covid-19-indian-healthcare-workers-need-adequate-ppe/
Cavanaugh, K. L. (2011). Health literacy in diabetes care: Explanation, evidence and equipment. Diabetes Management, 1(2), 191–199.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – CDC (2020). Assessing risk factors for severe COVID-19 illness. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/assessing-risk-factors.html
Jaacks, L. M., Siegel, K. R., Gujral, U. P., & Narayan, K. M. (2016). Type 2 diabetes: A 21st century epidemic. Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 30(3), 331–343.
Titchener, J. (2020). Diabetes management: A manual for patient-centred care. Taylor & Francis Group.
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