Characteristics Of Community Health

Whether people realize it or not they live within some sort of community. The World Health Organization define a community as: “a group of people, often living in a defined geographical area, who may share a common culture, values and norms, and are arranged in a social structure according to relationships which the community has developed over time” (Shuster, 2014, p. 397). Just like the view of the community has three main characteristics, community health does as well. Community health can be characterized by status, structure, and process (Shuster, 2014). The status aspect of community health involves the physical or biological of community health, for example, morbidity and mortality rates (Shuster, 2014). The structure concept of

The land or homes that are for sale usually get bought up quickly. There are very few abandoned homes in this area. There is very little advertisement done in the rural areas, unless it has to do with politics, fresh produce stand, or garage sale. The political posters usually involve local campaigns, such as Mayor or Sherriff campaigns. The race of Henderson consist of all races, the majority is either Caucasian or African-American. In the Bear Pond area consist of mostly Caucasians. The main language is English. The area consists of two private schools and public schools and several churches. The two main kind of churches in this location are either Baptist or Methodist, and most of the churches are interracial.

The major health concerns for this population involves smoking and alcoholism. Just riding through I saw several individuals buying alcohol from the convenience store and cigarettes. I saw several individuals standing out on their front porch smoking cigarettes. The other community health concern consist of the amount of time it takes to reach a hospital or for an ambulance. It takes about 15 minutes, give or take, for an ambulance to reach the Bear Pond area and the nearest hospital is about 20 minutes

The people that travel the streets constantly look as if they are unemployed, many of the women have children. Sadly, there is nowhere to really hangout in this area, which is why many people stay in trouble. The area has several gang groups, which marks themselves and territory by colors and graffiti. You do not see any political signs or any other kind of advertisement because it usually gets graffiti on it or taken down. The main two religions in this area is Holiness or Methodist, the main race that attends these churches is African Americans. Although English is the main language amongst this population, there are some that speaks solely Spanish. All of the schools in this location are public schools.

There are several community health concerns for the population in ‘North Henderson.’ The area is known for drug addicts. I actually saw a drug deal happen in early afternoon. The second health concern for this population is sexually transmitted diseases. In comparison to the Bear Pond area, you see many people buying alcohol from the local ABC store and buying cigarettes from the convenience stores.

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