Response Guidelines

Read the posts of the learner below, and respond in very detailed and engaged information. In the response, you assume the role of a community leader who would be included as a participant, based on the learner’s post. In that role, summarize your understanding of what the plan is intended to accomplish and request more information about a point made in the original post. Also, in your response you are to have to two critical thinking questions pertaining to the learner’s post. My professor assists PHD candidates in writing their dissertation so he wants strong critical thinking. Also, response should have a minimum of 150 words and two peer-reviewed references in this response.

Scoring Guide

Analyzes course concepts, theories, or materials correctly, using examples or supporting evidence.

Applies relevant professional, personal, or other real-world experiences to extend the dialogue.

Validates position with applicable knowledge.

In my opinion, the community engagement process would be effective in the communities that I know. My final course paper will focus on African Americans with diabetes. The individuals affected in these communities would benefit from this process because they can be a part of ongoing informational sessions, gain health knowledge, and possibly access to care. Members of the community would be able to provide feedback and give ideas regarding how access to care can be implemented. They could also help educate other people in the community with same illness and possibly start outreach programs in the community that target these individuals.

Community participation and leadership is a central tenet of public health policy and practice. Community engagement approaches are used in a variety of ways to facilitate participation, ranging from the more utilitarian, involving lay delivery of established health programs, to more empowerment-oriented approaches. Evaluation methods within public health, adapted from clinical medicine, are most suited to evaluating community engagement as an ‘intervention’, in the utilitarian sense, focusing on the health impacts of professionally determined programs (South & Phillips ,2014).

This process can be used in my action plan to target those individuals with diabetes as a way of educating them. Implementing new ideas and other ways for patients to get access to quality medical care and can afford medications. As a public health leader, in my opinion I think that there should be more time spent in neighborhoods where people are most affected. Implementing a door to door educational briefing or having events within the community and not the local hospital or elsewhere would benefit some people who have transportation or maybe even disability issues.

The participants in the action plan would be a diverse group of individuals with knowledge about the issue at hand. Of course, public health officials would be involved, local hospitals, community outreach programs, community members affected by the disease, local school district, and community health centers would be active participants. As a public health official, partnering with hospitals and community health centers would be the focus to help educate the individuals dealing with the health issue. The individuals in the community that are involved can help educate newly diagnosed patients and share their stories.

Many people want to be directly and actively involved in addressing community-level problems that affect their lives. Yet, they are rarely treated as peers or resources in problem solving. In both the public and private sectors, community residents are usually treated as customers, clients, “objects of concern,” sources of data, or targets of problem-solving efforts. Because people treated in these ways have little or nothing to do or say concerning setting policy or making decisions, these approaches devalue and dis- credit their contributions and breed feelings of helplessness and dependency (Lasker& Weiss,2003).