A Report for the Community Health Assessment Plan

Introduction

Numerous health disparities exist in rural areas as research has proven poor health performances at such areas. The enactment of the Affordable Care Act that seeks the assessment community health needs by community hospital at least once in three years is meant to solve the health dysfunction that affects people in the interiors of US (Cherry et al., 2017). The health assessment done denotes factors that challenge health and aid in the exploration of resources that can aid in the improvement and maintenance of the health status of a community. As a community health worker, the development of a community health assessment protocol starts with the development of a Plan that aligns procedures required to conduct the assessment of community needs. The plan provides crucial information of identification of community stakeholders, community health data, method collection of data, the relationship of health factors and reliability of the data in the assessment of health status of the community.

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Description of Data and Healthcare Needs

For a reflection on the community health status, there is a need for both qualitative and quantitative data. For the most successful community assessment, the researchers must impress the use of various data collection methodologies to ensure that the data collected effectively reflects on the community health needs (Becker, 2014). The utilization of both qualitative and quantitative data establishes most viable information that accumulates factors within health and community that affect the existing disparities. In community health assessment, focus groups made of critical public staff, community partners, researchers, and consultants that thoroughly understand the perception, opinions, facts, and behavior must be consulted to provide primary data on the health status (Becker, 2014). The group of health stakeholder's aid in the eradication of biasness of data providing contextual variable required in the survey. Thus, a more valid report is obtained from the collected data implying that strategies made on the community health needs solve the existing gaps.

For data extraction from the community, it's necessary to use both primary and secondary data collection techniques that focus on the problem and needs of the community. The primary data collection methodologies include; conducting direct interviews with members, or use of a semi-structured interview with individual community-based researchers, or social workers and community groups (Cherry et al., 2017). In addition to that, we can develop community forums in which members of the community will contribute on matters affecting their health. Equally, the Community Health Assessment team might embrace observation through participation in health practices, walking in poor sanitation affected sites, and through critical incident reporting. Other strategies that can be deployed to help find disparities in health include group assessments, social networking program, debriefing sessions, simulation modeling, and visioning. On the others hand, secondary sources can be embraced to establish the health concerns that ranges from the use of peer reviewed periodicals, baseline indicators, and other creatures such as photos, videos, art, and drawings. In the end, the information from stakeholders helps suggest on the assets, resources, and services needed in the community to address health while identifying major health concerns, providing solutions, services, and additional services to boost the health standards.

Moreover, the assessment group should take both audio and video recordings that should later be directly transcribed to get relevant information. There is the administration of open-ended questionnaires to the community members, but the questions must be regulated to avoid a probability of bias (Cherry et al., 2017). Moreover, respondents must be separated through queries and for a referral to data matrix for review and analysis. For best results, an analytical approach is of importance in the focus group in which the researchers review the responses from the interviewed groups. The data can then be deductively deduced to obtain easily resolved codes that can categorically put in groups. The Community Health Assessment team can them enact a thematic analysis to explore new salient concerns emerging from the groups reflected from the grouped codes. In the end, the plan can provide trends and perspectives of health status that can be forwarded to frontrunners of the ministry of health to standardize poor performing areas.

Factors Affecting the Community's Health and Wellness

Among established factors that influence the health status of my community include; financial constraints among people who lack medical insurance cover, few and distant location of health facilities from people, poor sanitation, high prevalence rate of mental health problems caused by substance abuse, and lack of willingness of the authorities to eradicate the challenges (Schafer & Dawson, 2015). In essence, due to inadequate Medicare coverage among the locals, only a few people can access expected universal health; however, the majority of communities' population seek self-medication whenever sick. In another circumstance, even where a person has medical insurance, facilities are sparsely located in the area, which poses a threat to the health of HIV infected victims, women and infants. Among the youths of the community, high incidences of mental health have emerged in recent years due to easy access of substances from the neighboring country, Mexico, which borders the community. The community does have not only poor sanitation status but also a perceived lack of will from the state's government to resolve the challenges. In summary, the assessment plan has aided on the reflection of the rising health concerns that can be forwarded for discussion assisting in the health sector amendments.

The Establishment of Data Reliability and Validity

Finally, it is important to know that mixed-method data collection used to gather the community health concerns must be valid in fulfilling the aimed goal of exploiting gaps in the community health sector. In essence, the reliability of the data which is crucial for communities' health facilities and the whole community can be assured by drafting a report on the emergent issues and disseminating is back to the community for a review (Schafer & Dawson, 2015). The report must include methods used to collect data, results of the data and any bias that may raise as well as an assessment of the effect of biasness on the implication of the report. In the end, a plan acts as a prerequisite before a final release that helps in the assurance of the validity of the health assessment report, which is important in the formation of policies, programs, and interventions of public health.

Conclusion

Conclusively, a detailed and well-articulated health assessment plan serves as a guideline for the formation of a reliable community health report. In the presence of a plan, all focus group, methodologies, procedures, and there is the highlighting of data collection to researchers who are only expected to follow the procedures as expected to provide new health issues. In the end, a report that contains prioritized health needs is made.

References

Becker, K. (2014). Conducting Community Health Needs Assessments in Rural Communities. Health Promotion Practice, 16(1), 15-19. doi: 10.1177/1524839914555887

Schafer, E., & Dawson, R. (2015).Assessing Community Health Needs in a Rural Area: Determining Best Practices to Meet New Affordable Care Act Requirements. Health, 07(05), 542-546. doi: 10.4236/health.2015.75064

Cherry, S., Robinson, A., Jashinsky, J., Bagwell-Adams, G., Elliott, M., & Davis, M. (2017). Rural Community Health Needs Assessment Findings: Access to Care and Mental Health. JOurnal Of Social, Behavioral, And Health Sciences, Volume 11,(Issue 1), Pages 268-277. doi:10.5590/JSBHS.2017.11.1.18