Research Paper on Community Health Assessment: Identifying Needs & Status

Introduction

Community health assessment is also known as health needs assessment mainly refers to local, tribal, state, or territorial health assessment that looks to identify the main health issues and needs through a comprehensive, systematic data collection and analysis (Sacks et al., 2019). The community health assessment gives firms complete and detailed information about community health needs, concerns, and current health status. This information is crucial in helping organizations and government agencies both local and nationals to improve a community health improvement in order to justify where the resources will be best allocated to meet the community goals and needs (Pennel, McLeroy, Burdine, & Matarrita-Cascante 2015). The information developed helps the tribal, territorial, and states health departments develop a community health assessment whether for nonprofit hospital collaboration or accreditation preparation or other reasons.

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Importance of Community Health Assessment

A community health assessment plan is an essential part of public health practice. It primarily aims at describing the community health through presentation of community health needs resources, health status, and epidemic and other information necessary for the local health problems (Rabbani et al., 2016). Mainly it seeks to identify in the community the target pupations which might be at n increased risk of poor health, gain a better understanding of their problems and needs, and also assess the community and how it relates to health care providers. Consequently, community health assessment identifies the areas where better information is required on health disparities on the subpopulations, the severity and occurrence of disabilities in the population and the quality of healthcare.

By looking at the community needs assessment is a beneficial aspect of healthcare as it prevents that the system implemented is working in the community. Though assessing the community requires an organization or interested party gains a better understanding of the area under review, and that will be served regardless of the size (Singh & Young 2017). This enables an organization to engage with the community individuals, learn about the community resources, and develop a new partnership with the community (Kumar et al., 2019). Change is the main reason why people need to obtain arcuate information about the community healthcare requirements and need of the society. Primarily, the community is in a continual state of change and therefore as they experience natural development, they encounter fluctuating demographics.

Additionally, the community needs assessment is an integral part of involving society in developing goals and solving problems (Olayo, Wafula, Aseyo, Loum, & Kaseje 2014). Moreover, people will likely resist change because there is no adequate information and lack of involvement of the community in the decision-making process (Rabarison, Timsina, & Mays 2015). Therefore, taking advantage of the need's assessment will be better was pf the public to contribute and become involved in the outcomes. The main goals of community needs assessment are:

• Identify the main resources needed
• Determine how to develop, use, and obtain other recourse
• Identify the essential recourses that re readily available in the organization
• Create a collation plan
• Establish the baseline of evaluating progress within the community
• Select strategies to use in intervention or program

Community Problem in the Media

The main community identified in the media is the lack of clean water. Clean water is essential for the community as it prevents waterborne disease. Some of the diseases identified in the include amoeba, typhoid fever, hepatitis A or E, and cholera. This affects the community as the society is poor and there is poor sanitation (Kim et al., 2016). Some of the main factors contributing to this problem include poor community education and awareness and inadequate pit latrines.

The community in Belize mainly use pit latrines and some even dispose of their waste into the rivers. Lack of adequate sanitation in the community has resulted in a higher number of water-borne diseases that could be prevented with the right mechanism could be the government be more dedicated to improving the living condition of its people. Moreover, in some incidences a school has one pit latrine that is shared by its student (Davis et al., 2018). The need to have flashing toilet is crucial assist can prevent the spread of some of these condition as it ensures proper disposal of human waste which is the main contributing factor of water-borne diseases.

Community education and awareness are crucial in preventing some of these conditions affecting the community. Educating the community on the best practices to improve the living conditions is necessary for making sure that the community is safe from diseases. Consequently, the government should take up its role in securing that there is clean water for consumption by the people and provide adequate satiation programs (Huang et al., 2018). These roles not only lay on the hand of the government only the community has to be supportive of the programs put in place to ensure that they get the maximum benefits from the plans.

Conclusion

To sum up, community health assessment is vital in ensuring that the problem in society is identified and dealt with adequately. Moreover, it gives adequate information and statistics on how the resources available should be used and distributed to ensure that is equity for all and maximum benefit.

References

Davis, M. M., Lindberg, P., Cross, S., Lowe, S., Gunn, R., & Dillon, K. (2018). Aligning systems science and community-based participatory research: A case example of the Community Health Advocacy and Research Alliance (CHARA). Journal of clinical and translational science, 2(5), 280-288. doi:10.1017/cts.2018.334

Huang, W., Long, H., Li, J., Tao, S., Zheng, P., Tang, S., & Abdullah, A. S. (2018). Delivery of public health services by community health workers (CHWs) in primary health care settings in China: a systematic review (1996-2016). Global health research and policy, 3, 18. doi:10.1186/s41256-018-0072-0

Kim, K. B., Kim, M. T., Lee, H. B., Nguyen, T., Bone, L. R., & Levine, D. (2016). Community Health Workers Versus Nurses as Counselors or Case Managers in a Self-Help Diabetes Management Program. American journal of public health, 106(6), 1052-1058. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303054

Kumar, M. B., Madan, J. J., Achieng, M. M., Limato, R., Ndima, S., Kea, A. Z., ... Taegtmeyer, M. (2019). Is quality affordable for community health systems? Costs of integrating quality improvement into close-to-community health programmes in five low-income and middle-income countries. BMJ global health, 4(4), e001390. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001390

Olayo, R., Wafula, C., Aseyo, E., Loum, C., & Kaseje, D. (2014). A quasi-experimental assessment of the effectiveness of the Community Health Strategy on health outcomes in Kenya. BMC health services research, 14 Suppl 1(Suppl 1), S3. doi:10.1186/1472-6963-14-S1-S3

Pennel, C. L., McLeroy, K. R., Burdine, J. N., & Matarrita-Cascante, D. (2015). Nonprofit hospitals' approach to community health needs assessment. American journal of public health, 105(3), e103-e113. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302286

Rabarison, K. M., Timsina, L., & Mays, G. P. (2015). Community Health Assessment and Improved Public Health Decision-Making: A Propensity Score Matching Approach. American journal of public health, 105(12), 2526-2533. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302795

Rabbani, F., Shipton, L., White, F., Nuwayhid, I., London, L., Ghaffar, A., ... Abbas, F. (2016). Schools of public health in low and middle-income countries: an imperative investment for improving the health of populations?. BMC public health, 16, 941. doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3616-6

Sacks, E., Morrow, M., Story, W. T., Shelley, K. D., Shanklin, D., Rahimtoola, M., ... Sarriot, E. (2019). Beyond the building blocks: integrating community roles into health systems frameworks to achieve health for all. BMJ global health, 3(Suppl 3), e001384. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001384

Singh, S. R., & Young, G. J. (2017). Tax-Exempt Hospitals' Investments in Community Health and Local Public Health Spending: Patterns and Relationships. Health services research, 52 Suppl 2(Suppl Suppl 2), 2378-2396. doi:10.1111/1475-6773.12739