Identification of a Population in Your Community

 During this week, you will identify a population at risk in your community. This population will be the basis for your Practicum Discussions and your individual presentations over the next 6 weeks, as well as the focus of your final PowerPoint presentation in Week 6. To review, a population is a group of individuals who share a common environmental or personal characteristic, such as obese individuals who are at risk for diabetes or cardiovascular disease (populations at risk) or those individuals who are otherwise healthy and could stay healthy if they do not develop risky behaviors (populations of interest). An example of this is teenagers who don’t yet smoke but might consider it due to peer pressure (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016). Some of the topics you might consider are vaccination compliance, obesity rates among children and adults, teenage pregnancy, or infectious diseases such as Norwalk virus, genital warts, or sexually transmitted diseases/infections. You might look also at emerging public health problems such as Chagas or the Zika virus. Some of the places you might consider looking for information to substantiate and support your ideas about populations at risk in your communities are your local health department, the CDC, and the many evidence-based websites that the CDC supports, such as the CDC Wonder (http://wonder.cdc.gov/). You may also review the work of other community groups that focus on improving health care outcomes for your community. You should begin to support your selection of population and ideas about their health care problems through the use of health data and scholarly literature.

Please address the following points in your Practicum Discussion:

• Briefly describe your community and then describe your practice setting.
• What are the determinants of health in your community? (https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health)
• What are the most prevalent health problems in your community or in your practice?
• Choose a population at risk and describe the health problem specific to that population. Remember that you will have to define the population’s age, culture, religious beliefs, foods, and traditions eventually as your project progresses.

As a community of practice your task for this week is to collaborate with professionals across the health care system and with your community of practice in the discussion in order to find a gap in care or social determinant that often results in poor health care outcomes. You will begin to take the lead in advocating for and collaborating with others to improve the health care outcomes for populations at risk.

What health issue, problem, or disparity in health outcomes is of concern to you as a scholar practitioner in your community? What gaps in knowledge and care do you see as possible causes for the health issue? What does the health data tell you about the health issue? What does the literature tell you about the health issue? How can you learn about the health issue and about possible solutions from the viewpoint of families, community as a whole, and health professionals in your community? What evidence is there to support your proposal? What is one avenue you could advocate for improved health outcomes and know when a change has taken place?

• Develop an intervention plan in collaboration with other professionals that takes into account determinants of health, available resources, and activities that contribute to health and the prevention of illness or injury
• Provide culturally competent care, i.e., health promotion, disease and injury prevention interventions in collaboration with other health care professionals in a community health care setting
• Analyze data pertaining to a specific community health issue
• Evaluate how cultural competence improves nursing practice and health outcomes
• Evaluate current evidence-based practices for your selected population
• Analyze evidence-based practices
• Evaluate programs aimed at solving health problems
• Evaluate local disaster plans and contemplate collaborative efforts in problem solving
• Analyze effectiveness of practicum proposal through practice presentations
• Present practicum presentation to colleagues