Stratigic Plan for Public Health Organization Coursework

Stratigic Plan for Public Health Organization - Coursework Example STRATEGIC PLAN FOR LAKE COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT Our Vision: Our vision is to promote and protect the health of Waukegan Illinois through assessment, policy development, and assurance. Our Mission statement: The mission of the Lake County Health Department is to promote and protect the health of Illinois residents through networking and collaborative actions that raise public awareness, build a constituency, and influences legislation and policies concerning public health issues affecting northern Illinois.   Our Values: We believe that services must be available without barriers. No resident should be turned away due to an inability to pay. We also believe in providing services in an environment of mutual respect, free of discrimination or any bias (Lakecountyil.gov, 2013). Our core competencies a) This department came into existence in 1956, established by referendum. Back then, it had a small bunch of people. However, today it boasts of over one-thousand professional assisting i n all aspects of health, with an approximate working budget of seventy-million US dollars. b) Of all the human service providers under the Lake County, we are the biggest, with a twelve member Health Board governing this department. c) Nationwide, we rank among the top six of all two-thousand, eight hundred and sixty four health departments at the local level. d) We are members under the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium, an organization that serves the Chicago city and the Winnebago, Mchenry, Kendall, Lake, Kane, Cook, Dupage, and Will counties in terms of complex health matters. The Environmental Scan. An environmental scan is the systematic way of finding out and interpreting the external environment to know the trends and factors of change, and their likely impacts on an organization in the future. Economic aspects Increase or entry of new security risks will affect the ability to respond to emergencies. This will affect this department in that we may not respond to eme rgencies resulting from crime and health risks as we lack the training of responding to security risks. Global economic transformation on Health care due to advance in competition may find workers not adequately prepared for new work processes. Impacts of globalization of Health care owing to economic integration and liberalization of trade globally will mean that workers have to deal with more potentially dangerous diseases. Social/ demographic aspects High risk groups such as foreign workers, older and new workers will affect the workplace. This is because language and cultural barriers, lack of training as well as the work organization mean a possibility in increase of injuries or work blunders. The raising of the educational and general worker bar in qualifying as a health worker means injury rates will reduce because of better training and more workers that are competent. Aging of the American population will affect the workforce in that chronic injuries and illnesses may incre ase. In addition, older workers take longer to recover from such. Legal/ policy aspects Increase in the enforcement of health and safety regulations by the government means pushing towards greater compliance that will help in better competence and more output. Smoking ban in workplaces and public spaces means workers will no longer get exposure to

Consumer Coffee Consumption Preference in the Netherlands Research Proposal

Consumer Coffee Consumption Preference in the Netherlands - Research Proposal Example On average, the Dutch consume 3.2 cups of coffee per person everyday according to 2006 statistics making them the second largest coffee consumers after Scandinavians, and although the average is 13 percent lower compared to a decade earlier in 1996, the approximate coffee consumption is significantly high compared to other countries (de Bontridder). Coffee is substantially popular beverage in Netherlands, making a study into factors influencing the popularity, consumption, and preferences important especially for marketing groups wishing to segment the market. Compared to other countries, the Netherlands coffee consumption average is second to Scandinavian countries drinking approximately 4.3 cups of coffee per day between 2002 and 2006, with Finland topping the coffee consumption list at 5.4 cups a day (de Bontridder). In the same period, 2002-2006, eastern and southern Europe registered the least coffee consumption, with southern Europeans drinking approximately 1.9 cups per day a factor associated to higher tea consumption and preference. Various reasons exist, influencing people towards coffee consumption in the western countries, with the two primary factors according to Gelder, Buijsse, Tijhuis, et al being the psychoactive stimulation affect of caffeine content in the coffee and improvement of cognitive performance (Gelder et al 226). Most people in the western countries begin their day with a fresh cup of coffee, essentially to be fully awake for the rest of the day, and be able to maintain coherence in thought because coffee stimulates their brains. Notably, the association of coffee and better cognitive functioning is attributed to the caffeine factor, which enters the blood stream and acts as a stimulant causing alertness in body and mind. In a study conducted over a ten-year period assessing whether coffee consumption influences the cognitive decline in elderly men, the researchers identified variables that influence coffee consumption, which included education, height and weight, gender, physical activities, age, and lifestyle with participants from Finland, Italy, and the Netherlands. Considering age as the relevant variable in this discussion, the findings showed that age was inversely associated with the amount of coffee consumed (Gelder et al 228). The highest consumption was more than 4 cups per day, associated with people aged 74.8 years with a deviation of 0.4, which was the youngest group among the elderly participants, while the least consumers were aged 77 years (Gelder et al 230). In the same study, the Dutch came up as the highest consumers, whereby out of the 336 Dutch participants, 202 drank more than three cups per day compared to 77 of the Fin participants. Another study that shows agreement with the study by Gelder and colleagues is by Luciano, Kirk, and Heath et al, investigating the genetic and environmental influences on tea consumption and finding a common relation with those of coffee consumption. The study participants were 1796 Australian identical twins and 2013 non-identical twins aged 16 to 87 years. The study tested the number of cups of coffee and tea the participants took in a day, and the results showed a negative association of age with coffee preferences but a