How Public Health Professionals Can Lead the Fight for Food and Care Access

The fact that so many people struggle to eat, stay healthy, and access medical care is heartbreaking. While many healthcare professionals want to help, fixing systemic problems is difficult. Today, many men, women, and children cannot access healthcare, and it’s time for a change.

Healthcare professionals can do more to fix these problems than the average person. They have the knowledge, power, and numbers to advocate for policy changes and create new programs. Public health professionals address these problems more than ever.

Follow along as we explore how public health professionals can lead the fight for food and care access.

Public Health Professionals Are at the Forefront of Change

Sadly, the people struggling for access to food and healthcare cannot easily win the battle. That’s because of larger societal and systemic problems that the community has no role in. Experienced public health officials understand that, and they’re the ones who must act. Healthcare professionals can address these struggles in many ways, including:

Offer Mobile Clinics

You cannot receive care if you lack transportation and access to clinics. Some public health officials understand that and have implemented mobile clinics. Low-income, underserved communities can benefit from mobile health clinics.

That’s especially true in areas without easy access to public transportation. Mobile health clinics consist of vehicles staffed by healthcare professionals and equipped with medical equipment. These convenient clinics can visit underserved areas and provide free or affordable healthcare to people who may not otherwise access healthcare.

Some mobile clinics can offer basic check-ups and tests, whereas others can specialize in community-specific problems. For example, they can offer rapid COVID-19 and flu tests in communities that are especially vulnerable to such illnesses. Hopefully, mobile healthcare clinics will become more widespread.

Incentivize Healthy Diets

Unfortunately, sticking to a healthy diet is difficult when struggling financially. Many people dealing with financial hardships lean toward unhealthy foods, as they’re affordable and widely available. Public health officials owe it to their communities to incentivize healthy diets through financial support and easy access.

Programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) encourage this by incentivizing diets and offering financial aid. Healthcare providers have gradually embraced “produce prescription programs” as well. Produce prescription programs involve “prescribing” produce and providing vouchers to help people acquire healthy food.

This not only combats hunger but also directly helps people stick to a healthy diet. Not all states have embraced such programs, but public health officials will hopefully make it more widespread soon.

Educate the Community

Even if you can’t easily create a new program, you can at least do your best to educate the community. This is one thing that doesn’t require a huge amount of resources, so public health officials and organizations can easily justify it. Even something as simple as hosting health and nutrition-focused seminars can make a big difference.

Hosting seminars and spreading pamphlets can help educate and engage the community while promoting healthy practices. Educating the community about how they can access affordable coverage and healthcare is also essential. Today, educating the community is easier than ever, thanks to social media platforms.

Running advertisements and posting on social media can help spread information on a large scale. Of course, you must take a fact-based approach and reinforce claims with evidence and figures. Even just letting them know about food drives and free check-ups can change someone’s life.

Influence Policies

Sadly, healthcare policies don’t always protect people struggling with financial hardships. It’s up to public healthcare officials to fix this problem and help underserved communities. If healthcare officials push to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, it probably will be.

These things take time, but the more people push for such policy changes, the more likely they are to happen. For example, health officials can propose policy changes regarding food and healthcare assistance programs. The policies may not change overnight, but every bit of change can make a big difference in the community.

Today, the ability to influence institutions is one of the key skills in public health. Healthcare professionals must learn to articulate information and highlight its importance for the good of the community. If nobody advocates for those who need it, the people in charge may wait years before acting.

Check Patients for Signs of Food Insecurity

Nurses and doctors owe it to their patients to look out for unspoken truths. For example, any reputable healthcare professional can likely tell when their patients are malnourished and hungry. If all healthcare professionals check patients for signs of food insecurity, policymakers will see the big picture.

This knowledge can help policymakers understand the severity of the issue. From there, it’s easier to get approval for nutrition programs and even community food drives. It’s also important to track this data and compare it to many other factors.

Doing so can reveal a lot of valuable information regarding the local population. It will also help highlight the disparities in food and care access based on economic and social factors. This information can make a big difference.

Healthcare Professionals Can Make a Big Difference

Healthcare professionals are more equipped to address widespread healthcare and nutritional disparities than anyone else. Whether you just got a nutrition degree or have worked as a nurse for years, you can make a difference. Nutritionists, nurses, doctors, and policymakers must band together to advocate for underserved communities.

That’s the only way that underserved communities can easily access healthy food and healthcare. By creating programs and educating the public, healthcare professionals can help prevent lots of unnecessary suffering and starvation. It’s only then that larger organizations will address these problems and help people who need it most.