Frontline Advocacy: Transforming Passion into Action for Healthier Communities

Health transcends individual boundaries, emerging as a vital concern shared by all. When you channel your passion for health into advocacy, you not only enrich your own life but also significantly uplift those around you. Your proactive approach in spreading health awareness can catalyze community transformations, fostering environments that nurture wellbeing and longevity. By stepping into a role that leverages your enthusiasm for health, you play a crucial part in forging a society focused on holistic wellness. Here are some tips from theFAMCare team and one of our favorite guest blog contributors, Sharon Wagner from Senior Friendly.    We hope to help you get started on the right track!

Today's blog is written by guest blogger, Sharon Wagner, from Senior Friendly.  We truly appreciate her for sharing these helpful insights for our readers. 

Perhaps you've developed a chronic health condition in the past year, or maybe you're simply getting older and attending more checkups and routine doctor's appointments as a result. Knowing when to speak up for yourself when it comes to your health is a valuable skill. Learn more about becoming a stronger advocate for your health in order to maximize your doctor's appointments and get the best out of your treatment.

Whether you’ve been struggling to get a diagnosis for mysterious symptoms, or you’re simply trying to get your health back on track, you might feel frustrated by your experiences with doctors. Sometimes, it can be tough to ask for what you really need. Healthcare and social service professionals who use tools like FAMCare can have an easier time managing their patients. In the meantime, these tips can help you learn how to advocate for your own health.

Health care social workers who support medical professionals are reporting a dramatic increase in burnout in America's nursing community.  They say that the rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hot spots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout.

On a recent call with a professor in the social work department at a large Eastern university, we asked him what he saw as the human race's most vexing social problem. His answer was fascinating and quite unexpected. Below find excerpts from that conversation.

The nation's health care system is once again faced with overwhelming need pressing against limited resources. Medical professionals, including health care social workers, are forced to make hard choices that test the ethical boundaries of medical arbitrage. The scenarios below are all real-life situations communicated to GVT by health care social workers in the past month.

The climate change debate has centered on global warming for the last 10 years. Because the science tends to be arcane and somewhat opaque, the debate has become clouded with opinion rather than fact. However, the impact of severe weather events cannot be ignored.

The United States has the highest costs for healthcare of any industrialized nation and some of the worst health outcomes. The traditional fee-for-service model of delivery and payment is now seen as an ineffective model in terms of health and well-being. It is considered part of the reason the United States has such a poor healthcare ranking.

Our recent blog on the true cost of healthcare ignited a robust response from social workers who specialize in public health. This relatively new but growing social work specialty stresses a socio-epidemiological approach to the prevention and management of the chronic diseases that plague our society.

The healthcare debate rages on. Politicians on both sides of the aisle insist that they have the answer to the staggering cost of healthcare in the United States, but no concrete solutions have emerged. One party tends to favor socialized medicine while the opposition, agreeing that healthcare should be available to all citizens, hasn’t figured out how to pay the staggering bill.