Part one:

Discussion Question: Remember word count and to use one outside source (cited and referenced)

• Identify a Community Health Assessment Model.  (This document from the CDC lists commonly used community assessment models: https://www.cdc.gov/stltpublichealth/cha/assessment.html )
• What are some benefits of using a specific model to assess a community? 
• What agencies should be included with the assessment? 
• What is a reasonable time frame in which to complete a community wide assessment? 
• What is the role of the public nurse in implementation of the chosen model?

Part two:

Assignment Description: The final community assessment paper will be submitted in Module 8; therefore, there is no paper to be submitted this week for Mod 7 – only the updated cumulative hour log.  This week please just add the hours you spend completing the community assessment to your Project Hours Log and submit. The Log is all that is required this week for submission (You should have approximately 2-4 hours logged for the geriatric assessment from Mod 2 and now an additional 10-14 hours for Mod 7 portion of the community assessment.Any research that is completed or people who are interviewed should be included in the week 7 log. Please incorporate not only on-line research, but conversational/personal data, as well.

In this module, you will complete a full assessment of your own community.  (You will be using this for your Community Health II course as you plan, implement, and evaluate an education teaching project within your community designed to address an identified health concern of your chosen population.) For this week, in the Module 7 Overview there are several areas which must be assessed for a fully developed assessment. Review this section thoroughly.

• First is to Defining the Community; answer all questions noted in this section in the Overview. Your community can be a pediatric, adolescence, young adults, adult, elderly or a combination. Or it can be a specific ethnic group or a group such as truck drivers, farmers, or campers. Be sure to define cultural context of the population, demographics such as age, race, education, birth/death rates, life expectancy, insurance status, and other pertinent details. Connect community context and demographics with Healthy People 2020 objectives and identify a health concern.I know the assignment instructions say to select a specific population, but for an easier transition into N493, remain very broad when doing your research this week. The broader, the better! Focus on your county, city or town. Having a broad community assessment will serve you better as you go into N493 (community health 2). In that course you will pick a more specific population, like children, adolescents or adults for the primary prevention project.
• After the community has been defined, the next phase is Assessment. In the Overview section there are several resources and methods that can be used to gather and generate data. These items serve as a starting point for data collection. Please be sure to use this list to complete a comprehensive assessment of your community. These include:
  • Data Gathering (collecting information that already exists – be sure to use at least 3 agencies to pull data from) (be sure to make clear connections between data gathered and health issues found)
    • Demographics of the Community
    • Information from Government Agencies and Other Data Sources
  • Data Generation (data are developed that do not already exist – this comes from you). Choose three ways listed to generate new data. You should identify many cultural and contextual observations that impact health and be able to make in-depth comparison made to gathered data above as well as connections to health issues found.
    • Windshield Surveys
    • Participant Observation
    • Informant Interviews
    • Focus Groups
    • Surveys