Program plan

There is a need to address the high incidence and mortality rates of prostate cancer, especially among African American males. Therefore, it has been recommended that training and screening interventions will promote healthcare access to individuals without the knowledge and/or access to screening facilities. The program will involve two activities. The first activity will entail online awareness programs aimed at enhancing knowledge on how lifestyle factors contribute to increased risk of prostate cancer. The training session will also provide participants with information on how to adopt healthier lifestyles to prevent prostate cancer. The second activity involves the provision of screening facilities to promote the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. The generalized program planning model will be applied in the implementation of the program while Andersen’s Behavioral Drivers Model will be applied as a strategy for behavior/ social change.

Part Two: Program Plan

Public health promotion aims at eliminating healthcare disparities and improving healthcare access to all groups within the population. Similarly, the aim of the program is to boost healthcare access and reduce healthcare disparity across the population. This paper addresses the goals and objectives of the program plan and describes components of the program plan.

Need for Program

Statistics have indicated that there are high prostate cancer mortality rates among African American males compared to the rest of the population (Di Pietro et al., 2016). The high mortality rates are attributed to lack of access to healthcare facilities. Other factors contributing to the high mortality rates include lack of health insurance, poverty, and lack of awareness on the benefits of screening (Howlader, 2015).As a result, the program proposes an intervention to promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles that contribute to the reduction of the risk of prostate cancer associated with lifestyle behaviors.

Goals of the Program Plan

To bring about a change in lifestyle behavior in African American males to reduce prostate cancer incidence.

Objectives of the Program Plan

Outcome objectives

The objective of the program is the 5% reduction of prostate cancer incidence and mortality in African American males.

Process objectives

The first process objective is to promote awareness on the benefits of adopting healthy lifestyles in African American males to reduce prostate cancer incidence.  The second objective is the promotion of screening to African American males to reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

Program Plan

The program includes the program planning model, activities identified to achieve objectives, implementation strategies, behavior/social change framework, collaboration with existing services/organizations, and evaluation.

Program planning model

The generalized program planning model will be applied in the implementation of the program. The model consists of various models required in the implementation of a program. They include needs assessment, setting goals and objectives, developing an intervention, implementing the intervention, and evaluating the results(Kim & Nahar, 2018).

• Needs assessment: Identifies high prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in African American males. The high rate of prostate cancer is attributed to lack of awareness as well as lack of healthcare access.Factors contributing to the high incidence rates of prostate cancer are lifestyle behaviors while factors contributing to the high mortality rates are lack of access to healthcare services.
• Setting goals and objectives: Goals and objectives of the program involve increased awareness on the benefit of adopting healthy lifestyle choices and increased access to screening.
• Developing an intervention: The intervention will address high prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in African American males.
• Implementing the intervention: The program will provide African American males with training and screening for prostate cancer
• Evaluating the intervention: The intervention will be evaluated by determining the effectiveness of training and screening in increasing awareness on prostate cancer and in increasing the number of African Americans undergoing prostate cancer screening.

Program Activities and Implementation Strategies

The first activity identified to achieve program objectives is conducting awareness sessions. To increase awareness, online and social media resources such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and You Tubewill be used to engage with the target population. The online resources will provide online users them with information concerning prostate cancer risk factors, and how a person’s lifestyle exposes them to the risk of cancer. The awareness will also provide them with information on where to get screening for cancer. The target population will also be notified of a three-day event where cancer screening will be conducted.

The second activity will involve prostate cancer screening. The aim of screening is to detect cancer and facilitate early treatment and management of the disease. The screening will be conducted free of charge as a way of boosting healthcare access to individuals who may not afford similar healthcare services due to financial constraints or as a result of lack of insurance coverage. Individuals who will receive positive diagnosis for prostate cancer will be referred to specialist healthcare centers for further diagnosis and treatment. A similar intervention was conducted by Achunine at el. (2018) and it was highly successful due to the increased number of people who showed up for cancer screening.

Implementation strategies 

The identified intervention will provide awareness to African American males on the impact of lifestyle behaviors on the risk of prostate cancer. Instead, training will focus on healthy food choices and how individuals can reduce caloric intake and adopt active lifestyles. Awareness meetings will be conducted with African American males in educational institutions, places of work, and religious institutions. The implementation also involves conducting screening sessions with target communities for prostate cancer. Evaluation of the results entails determining the level of prostate cancer awareness by conducting pre-tests and post-tests and establishing the level of increased knowledge. The effectiveness of the program will be determined by evaluating changes in the number of African Americans undergoing screening.

Behavior/Social Change Framework

Andersen’s Behavioral Drivers Model will be applied as a strategy for behavior/ social change. The model is based on three tenets involving understanding, influencing, and tracking behavior (Ogunsanya et al., 2016). Understanding behavior involves gaining insight into the behaviors that increase the risk of cancer. Increased risk of prostate cancer is as a result of poor lifestyle choices that are due to lack of awareness or and/or lack of access to healthcare facilities. To influence a change of behavior, it is necessary to implement a program that creates awareness on the benefits of adopting healthy lifestyles and provides a way of promoting prostate cancer screening. Monitoring behavior involves tracking change by determining the level of increased awareness on prostate cancer and the increase in the number of people undergoing screening.

Collaboration with Existing Services/Organizations

The implementation of the program will necessitate collaboration with nurses, physicians, diagnosticians, and sponsors. Healthcare personnel will be responsible for undertaking the tests and testing the specimen to determine diagnosis. The sponsors will be responsible for funding the entire activity. Collaborations with healthcare organizations will be necessary as the organizations will provide materials and locations for testing. Individuals who test positive for prostate cancer will be referred to the healthcare institutions for further tests and treatment.

Evaluation Plan during Program Planning

The evaluation process will consider the effectiveness of both the training and screening activities. For formative/ process evaluation, the screening activity will be evaluated by determining the number of African Americans undergoing screening for prostate cancer. An increase in the number of people getting screened improves the likelihood that cancer will be diagnosed at early stages where treatment is more successful, and the survival rate is higher (Wang, 2017). To enhance the effectiveness of the program, the awareness should be ongoing even after the completion of the program so that individuals can make informed choices on how to avoid the risk of cancer. For summative evaluation,participants will be administered a short questionnaire before and after the training session. The results will be compared to determine the change in awareness levels.

Conclusion

The awareness and screening program will be effective in reducing prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in African American males. Early diagnosis is effective in enhancing awareness of the disease and how to get care, providing clinical evaluation and diagnosis, and facilitating access to treatment. Training and screening interventions will promote healthcare access to African Americans. The program will involve two activities including training and awareness programs and the promotion of screening to promote the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. Ultimately, the program will boost healthcare access and reduce healthcare disparities associated with prostate cancer.