Episode 186 | Population Health, Prevention And Health Promotion In Physical Therapist Practice With Dawn Magnusson, ...

In this episode, we're discussing the integration of population health, prevention, health promotion and wellness activities into clinical practice. With decades of research supporting the benefits of lifestyle changes on positive health outcomes, physical therapists and other health professionals are exploring and weaving integrative and lifestyle medicine into both insurance and cash-based practice settings, as well as community health and serving the private sector business. Lifestyle changes, including physical activity, nutrition and stress management all lead to improved health benefits in those with chronic disease and prevent or manage a number of non-communicable diseases, which lead to an increased quality of life. Physical therapists are well-positioned to treat non-communicable diseases through the integration of population health, prevention, health promotion, and wellness activities into clinical practice.
Joining us to discuss the topics of health promotion prevention, wellness in physical therapy practice is Professor Dawn Magnusson. She is an Assistant Professor in Physical Therapy at The University of Colorado. She received a Master's degree in Physical Therapy and then went on to pursue a PhD in Population Health Sciences. Her research employs community-based methods within a population health framework and informs the development of innovative community-based solutions to advance health equity for underserved children. In this episode, you'll learn all about population health, why physical therapists should care about population health, what the integration of population health and physical therapist practice looks like, how disease prevention, health promotion fit into population health and how physical therapists can become more active in population health, disease prevention, as well as health promotion. This is a big and important topic that has implications both for the entry-level of physical therapy education as well as clinical practice. Let's get ready and let's begin with Professor Dawn Magnusson.