A community can be defined as a group of people, who live, learn, work and play in an environment at a given time. (Yiu, 2012, p.213) There are many factors that may influence the community’s development and health status. These can include resources available, accessibility, transportation, safety, community needs etc… These influences may combine together to form community strengths and as well as community challenges or weaknesses. As a community health care nurse, it is significant for us to assess and identify these strengths and challenges within the community in order for us to intervene and provide the appropriate needed health care services for the community members. This individual scholarly paper will explore and focus on one challenge issue identified from our group community assessment. For our group community assessment, we assessed the neighbourhood of Moss Park. Throughout our assessment at Moss Park, we noted many of the community’s characteristics including physical environment, resources available, strengths and weaknesses etc… Moss Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, the area is mainly comprised of worn-out buildings and houses with a satisfactory number of resources including a public library, school, health care centers, pharmacies etc… During the assessment of this neighbourhood we noticed that the physical environment was contaminated with the presence of garbage on the streets and in residential areas. As we were walking through this area during our assessment, we noticed a strong smell of cigarette smoke in many areas on the streets and in some residential areas. We also observed many people smoking in the area which creates a harmful environment of second-hand smoke. Lastly, we noted th... ... middle of paper ... ...tthana, W., Ruangdej, K., & Turner-Henson, A. (2010). Outdoor air pollution and children's health. Pediatric Nursing, 36(1), 25-32. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/199446597?a ccountid=13631 Toronto Public Health. (2013). Toronto's health status indicator series respiratory disease. Retrieved from http://www.toronto.ca/health/map/indicators/pdf/respiratorydisease.pdf Yiu, L. (2012). Community care. In L. Stamler & L. Yiu (Eds.), Community health nursing: A Canadian perspective (3rd ed., p. 213, 219, 227). Toronto, Canada: Pearson Canada Inc. Wright, C. Y., & Diab, R. (2011). Air pollution and vulnerability: Solving the puzzle of prioritization. Journal of Environmental Health, 73(6), 56-64. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/818561631?a ccountid=13631
Another focus for change is that over the years the demand for home and community care over hospital care has continued to grow, as stated by the Queens nursing institute “Recent health policy points to the importance of improving and extending services to meet the health and care needs of an increasingly older population and provide services which may have previously been provided in hospital within community settings”.
Strasser, Judith A., Shirley Damrosch, and Jacquelyn Gaines. Journal of Community Health Nursing. 2. 8. Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1991. 65-73. Print.
Health care providers not knowing their surrounding community impacts the way they provide health care to a patient. I hope to use my background in community work with underrepresented populations and the qualities I gained to hopefully reduce and someday diminish the concern that health care isn’t keeping up with the demographics of the surrounding community. The third health care concern I will talk about is another near and dear to me which is the severely low quality health care women in developing countries receive.
During one of my undergraduate courses, “Community and Population Health”, I completed a paper on my community and access to healthcare. During the research and community outreach performed to meet the goals of the paper, my eyes were opened to the plight of small communities in regards to access to quality healthcare. This plight has become my passion, and has formed the basis for my vision of the Family Nurse Practitioner role.
According to Allender, Rector, and Warner (2014), public health is a combination of both an art and a science (2014). The mission of public health nursing is to promote health, prevent disease and ultimately prolong life (Allender et al., 2014). In order for this to occur an assessment must take place. An aggregate or community assessment begins with a collection of data. This includes: the community’s health needs, risks, environmental conditions, financial resources through local census data, and a windshield survey (Allender et al., 2014). Through public health nursing, communities can collectively come together to help promote an overall better health standing.
Nies, M.A. & McEwan, M. (2015). Health a community view. In Community/public health nursing: promoting the health of populations (6th ed.) (p. 1). St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier.
Harkness, G. A. & Demarco, R. (2012). Community and public health nursing. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Holistic nursing is a specialty practice that draws on nursing knowledge, theories, expertise and intuition to guide nurses in becoming therapeutic partners with people in their care. This practice recognizes the totality of the human being - the interconnectedness of body, mind, emotion, spirit, social/cultural, relationship, context, and environment (American Holistic Association, 2015, para 2). The learning topic can be found in the goals listed in module two. Specifically, learning the roles of community health in wellness. The second learning goal is how to correctly complete an assessment of the needs of a community. I hope to expand my professional goal into the admiration of a community based health program. Module 7 will give the background to determine the services needed in the community. Additionally, Module 8 will enable me to gather the data and
Our group definition of health showed that health is broad and consists of objective and subjective parts. In contrast, the king’s interaction model (theory of goal attainment), the purpose of nursing is to help people maintain, or restore health by mutually goal setting. Her view towards the concept of health are easy to understand, but difficult to realize because the role of nurses is based on the health needs of patient, family, community and population. The other needs of patient, family and community will be resolve by nurses giving patients referrals or follow-up for care to other professionals. These health needs exclude health disparities and inequities in vulnerable population that nurses serve. Also, these health needs include reciprocal
Janice E. Hitchcock, P. E. (2003). Community Health Nursing – Caring In Action (2nd ed.).
The purpose of this community profile is to discuss a particular health improvement issue within a chosen community. A community can be defined using many different terms. You can belong to a community through religious beliefs. Through shared experiences or interests. You can belong to a political community where all involved share the same political interests. A community can also be defined as ‘a family’ a small village where many have lived most of their lives who share the same desire to belong to that community.
The purpose of community profiling is to identify and understand health-related issues, inequalities and needs within a community; with the intention of determining the factors that influence people’s health and wellbeing within that given community in order to highlight gaps in provision to contribute towards making positive health improvements and improving the quality of life of the community. Community profiling as a nurse supports an insight into the population and areas of the geographical communities where nursing care is provided. It allows nurses to gain an understanding of the services provision for a particular health issue within a given community and also provides an awareness into the role and responsibilities of the nurse in facilitating access to services.
Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2011). Community/public health nursing: promoting the health of populations (5th ed.). St.Louis, MO: Saunders.
Lave, Lester B.; Eugene P. Seskin (1973). "An Analysis of the Association Between U.S. Mortality and Air Pollution". Journal of the American Statistical Association 68: 342.
An idea of a healthy community with a safe environment, accessibility to preventive health care services and screenings, education on health promotion that is stress-free and accessible and healthier grocery stores. Characteristics of a healthy community are ideas, activities, and resolutions derived from partnerships of diverse groups, regular self-evaluation that is part of the practice, which is the focus. A diversity of strategies, techniques, documents, and other resources would have to be executed to support and make a healthy community. If an individual 's knowledge of a healthy community is different from his or her belief then community strategy must be put in place in order to begin to achieve the goal of improving health. Community strategy must be supported by the individuals who are working together in order to be successful (Matthew, et al, 2001). In order for a strategy to become effective, a consistent plan should be created with achievable goals within a community. Also individuals that are strong, inspired, and truthful and determined should also carry out the