Health Assessment and Communication

Working in a new facility that is underserved comes with unique challenges that require time to adapt to the new conditions. To understand the needs of the community therefore requires a consideration of a different set of factors to be able to operate conveniently in the new environment. To begin with, it will be important to consider the data that is significant in a community health assessment. The first kind of data that will be required will be the quantitative data, which includes both the primary data from the primary research and secondary data. Some example of data may include; the gender, poverty status, and age. Data is a very key factor in determining the healthcare needs of the community. Understanding the age distribution of the population therefore will help me to be able to plan well for different kinds of needs for the healthcare in the new location (Walsh, 2015).

Data Collection Strategies

Interviewing the locals will be one of the strategies that will be used in obtaining the necessary data. This is because having a personal interaction with people allows deeper understanding of the interviewees’ responses and thus capturing the needs of health in the area. Another strategy that will be employed in data collection will be through observation. This strategy was chosen because of its significance in minimizing the time required to take simple data that does not require complex infrastructure and preparation. Overall, the strategies that will be used are “annual surveys of a representative sample of state residents include individual interviews, a physical exam and bio-specimen collection, coupled with assessments of the community environment” (Nieto, Peppard, Engelman, McElroy, Galvao, Friedman & Malecki, 2010).

Factors That Impact Health and Wellness of a Community

Social and economic factors such as income and social status impact the health of a community in both positive and negative ways. The higher income earners and those individuals who have higher social status in the community tend to be linked to better health due to the fact that they have the capability to access quality healthcare services. On the other hand, low income affects the health and wellness of a community in a way that makes accessing better healthcare services a challenge. Low-income households also may not have access to or the means to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, leading them to eat fast food or other unhealthy foods which cause an array of health issues. Therefore, the bigger the gap between the rich people and the poor in the community will reduce the health and wellness of the community and the smaller the gap, the better the quality of health and wellness of a community (Ahmed et al, 2017).

In addition, the level of education also affects the health and wellness of the community. Well-educated people tend to have better jobs with benefits that allow them the luxury of healthcare. They also tend to be more knowledgeable about what is needed to stay healthy and live a life of wellness. Lastly, the physical environment plays a very key role in determining the health and wellness of the community. Physical environment includes the infrastructure and the natural resources found within the community and therefore, if the physical environment contains poor drainage, poor water accessibility and housing, the health and wellness of the community will be similarly poor and vice versa.

How to Obtain the Information and Determine Reliability

The information on physical environment is not complex to obtain since most of the information simply requires observation and therefore, the environment needs to be observed as well as social amenities that are available within the community in order to come up with a clear conclusion on the same. Also, questionnaire can be useful as a method to obtaining the information on social and economic status of the people living within the community in order to determine the level of income of different people (Skalka et al, 2015). The authenticity of the data will be able to be determined from the questionnaire by comparing the economic activities that take place within the community.

Resources

Ahmad, J. N., Saitabau, A. N., Mafimbo, N. B., & Liagamula Kayegeri, A. J. (2017). Factors Affecting of Health Services by Community Health Units. Journal of Community & Public Health Nursing, 03(03). doi:10.4172/2471-9846.1000175

Nieto, F. J., Peppard, P. E., Engelman, C. D., McElroy, J. A., Galvao, L. W., Friedman, E. M., & . . . Malecki, K. C. (2010). The Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW), a novel infrastructure for population health research: rationale and methods. BMC Public Health, 10, 785–796.

Skałka, P., Boroń, D., Brus, H., & Brus, R. (2015). Lyme disease (Borreliosis) treatment – Questionaire study. Pharmacological Reports, 67, 38-39. doi:10.1016/j.pharep.2015.06.117

Walsh, A. (2015). Impact of Demographics on Healthcare Utilization. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 7(1). doi:10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5722