Applying the Precede-Proceed Model to Promote Physical Activity
This paper applies Dr. Lawrence Green's Precede-Proceed Model to the Healthy People 2020 objective of promoting physical activity among adults at a behavioral health clinic in a low-income community. Moving through all seven phases of the model, the paper conducts a social and epidemiological assessment of the target population, identifies motivating and enabling factors, and outlines a practical 7-week exercise and health education intervention. The paper also addresses administrative alignment, implementation logistics, and evaluation methods — including survey instruments and Likert-scale measurement — to determine whether participants sustained physical activity routines and experienced measurable health improvements.
- Introduction: Overview of intervention goal and paper scope
- Phase 1: Social Assessment and Situational Analysis: Community health status and need for activity
- Phase 2: Epidemiological Diagnosis: Health risks, costs, and barriers to exercise
- Phase 3: Educational and Ecological Assessment: Motivating, enabling, and reinforcing factors
- Phase 4: Intervention, Alignment, and Administrative/Policy Assessment: Program design, resources, and organizational fit
- Phases 5 and 6: Implementation and Process: Scheduling, instructor role, and process evaluation
- Phase 7: Impact Evaluation: Survey and Likert-scale outcome measurement
- Conclusion: Summary of intervention rationale and design
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper maps every section directly onto a named phase of the Precede-Proceed Model, giving readers a clear one-to-one correspondence between theory and application.
- Evidence from peer-reviewed sources (Berlin & Colditz, 1990; Eheman et al., 2012; Vancampfort et al., 2011) is woven into the needs assessment rather than appended as decoration, strengthening the rationale for the intervention.
- Practical details — room requirements, cost estimate under $500, certificate of completion, Likert-scale surveys — ground the theoretical model in actionable planning.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates systematic framework application: a well-known public health planning model is used as an explicit scaffold, and each section tests how real-world conditions (low-income setting, behavioral health population) map onto the model's requirements. This technique shows not only that the student understands the theory but that they can operationalize it step by step.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with an introduction that states the population, objective, and scope. Seven subsequent sections each correspond to a phase of the Precede-Proceed Model — social assessment, epidemiological diagnosis, educational/ecological assessment, administrative assessment, implementation, process oversight, and impact evaluation — followed by a brief conclusion that summarizes the intervention's rationale and design.
Introduction
Using Dr. Lawrence Green's Precede-Proceed Model, the Healthy People 2020 objective of promoting physical activity can be developed into a concrete strategy. The target population for this particular objective consists of adults at a behavioral health clinic located in a low-income area. The plan is to execute a 7-week exercise class with accompanying health education to promote physical activity. The goal of the plan is to embed physical activity in the daily lives and routines of the adult clients at the clinic. This paper examines the seven phases of the Precede-Proceed Model and shows how they apply to the Healthy People 2020 objective described above.
Phase 1: Social Assessment and Situational Analysis
The health status of the low-income community in which the behavioral health clinic is situated is poor. A windshield survey indicates that few people are outdoors exercising, playing sports in parks, walking, jogging, bicycling, or taking part in any form of physical activity whatsoever. As Berlin and Colditz (1990) noted nearly three decades ago, physical activity is crucial to the prevention of many health-related issues, such as coronary heart disease. There is a lack of awareness of the benefits of physical activity among the adult clients at the behavioral health clinic, which indicates a need for an educational intervention in accordance with the model recommended by Green, Kreuter, Deeds, and Partridge (1980).
Phase 2: Epidemiological Diagnosis
Lack of physical activity is especially harmful for individuals with behavioral or mental health problems (Vancampfort et al., 2011). It can reduce quality of life for such patients and impair their ability to improve their overall conditions. Additionally, excess weight and insufficient physical exercise lead to an increased risk of cancer development in the pancreas and kidney (Eheman et al., 2012). There is also a significant economic cost, estimated at $24 billion — or 2.4% of total health care spending — per year at the end of the twentieth century (Colditz, 1999).
There is also the challenge that this particular population lives in a low-income community, an environment that can cause people to want to stay indoors rather than go outside and exercise, out of fear of being attacked, assaulted, or simply feeling unsafe (Molnar, Gortmaker, & Buka, 2004). Part of addressing this issue, therefore, involves helping people find ways to overcome insecurities about being outdoors in a low-income community so that they can engage in physical exercise on a routine basis.
The intervention selected to address this issue is the 7-week exercise class with health education. The class will teach basic physical exercises that clients can perform on a regular basis. It will also include health education on the value and importance of maintaining an exercise routine. Finally, it will present practical steps adults can take to feel more secure in their community — such as exercising in pairs or groups, and maintaining contact with others so that someone always knows when a participant is out.
Phase 3: Educational and Ecological Assessment
Motivating behaviors for this population include improving their health and feeling better physically. As patients at the clinic, they are already motivated to improve their health, making this intervention a natural extension of their existing goals. Because they are already predisposed to learning about ways to improve their health, they should welcome the class. Enabling factors include the patients' ability to develop a support group or network so that they can assist one another in getting out and exercising — whether by carpooling to a park for walking or bicycling as a group. Reinforcing factors include the feeling of improved health that participants will experience by engaging in physical activity. Even from personal experience, one can sense how much better one feels after exercising for a short period of time: energy levels, attitude, and overall physical well-being improve significantly.
Conclusion
The 7-week exercise and education course will be used to help educate and train the adult population at the behavioral health clinic in the low-income community about the positive effects of physical exercise and practical methods of engaging in it. The aim of the intervention is to promote physical activity in accordance with the Healthy People 2020 objective. The need for this intervention is evident from a basic windshield observation of the community, from research that has documented the relationship between various health problems and a lack of exercise, from the Healthy People 2020 initiative itself, and from the demand for this type of education within the population. The intervention will be conducted at the clinic in the evenings, once per week over 7 weeks, and will consist of exercise training and health education.
References
Berlin, J. A., & Colditz, G. A. (1990). A meta-analysis of physical activity in the prevention of coronary heart disease. American Journal of Epidemiology, 132(4), 612–628.
Colditz, G. A. (1999). Economic costs of obesity and inactivity. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 31(11 Suppl), S663–7.
Eheman, C., Henley, S. J., Ballard-Barbash, R., Jacobs, E. J., Schymura, M. J., Noone, A. M., ... & Jemal, A. (2012). Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 1975–2008, featuring cancers associated with excess weight and lack of sufficient physical activity. Cancer, 118(9), 2338–2366.
Green, L. W., Kreuter, M. W., Deeds, S. G., & Partridge, K. B. (1980). Health education planning: A diagnostic approach (1st ed.). Mayfield.
Molnar, B. E., Gortmaker, S. L., Bull, F. C., & Buka, S. L. (2004). Unsafe to play? Neighborhood disorder and lack of safety predict reduced physical activity among urban children and adolescents. American Journal of Health Promotion, 18(5), 378–386.
Vancampfort, D., Probst, M., Scheewe, T., Maurissen, K., Sweers, K., Knapen, J., & De Hert, M. (2011). Lack of physical activity during leisure time contributes to an impaired health-related quality of life in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 129(2–3), 122–127.
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