Sample Essay On Community Health Assessment

Community Health Assessment

Introduction
According to the World Health Organization (2014) the world’s top cause of death from 2000 to 2012 is heart disease. Statistics from New York State department of Health also places heart disease as the top killer at the state level and county level (Heron, 2012). It is because of this that this community health assessment intends to identify the stakeholders and describe their roles and responsibilities, set the goals of community health assessment, collect data needed for understanding disease, and describe the data collection methods needed to understand the facts behind heart disease in Albany, New York.

Stakeholders in Community Health Assessment

Stakeholders are the individuals, institutions, or organizations that have a key interest in planning as well as in the outcomes of a particular program. In my community health assessment, the stakeholders will include local health facilities, community, legislators and policy makers. Stakeholders are important since they provide essential information on the factors that contribute to health problems as well as revealing the resources in the community that might assist in mitigating the problems.

Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders

Local health facilities
They are essential in implementation of the interventions aimed at eliminating community’s health problems. They provide important data on the type and prevalence of various health diseases and disorders and thus an important source of health information.

Legislators and policy makers

They make policies that influence the success of the community health. For example, policies can be geared to increase funding to particular community health issue.

Community

The engagement of communities helps in creating an environment where community health issues are dealt with collaboratively between communities and other stakeholders interested in the health of the community. They are also the ones who are affected by the program. Furthermore, they are the primary source of information on health problems that affect them.

Community Health Assessment Goals

According to Minkler (2012), goals are “broad statements of about what people want done to solve a particular problem or to make a change.” The following are the goals that will guide the program:
Health problems are caused by a number of factors. Some of the factors include sedentary lifestyle, drug and substance abuse, stress, and hereditary factors. Knowledge of these factors helps in devising a workable approach to reducing the incidences of diseases and disorders in the community.
Community resources include hospitals, social services, religious-based, recreational, and civic groups and organizations. These resources are essential in providing health care, counselling, rehabilitation services, and also in championing for the rights of those with diseases and various disorders.
The leading cause of death in New York is heart disease. One of the causes of the disease is dietary habits. It is because of this that the community’s dietary habits will be documented.

Useful Data

Socio-demographic data
Data on race and ethnic background, age, sex, educational attainment, housing, and poverty will be gathered.
Behavioral and environmental data
Behavioral and environmental factors are some of the indicators of health. Examples of behavioral factors behind ill health are alcoholism and smoking. On the other hand, environmental factors such as crime, living conditions, pollution, and access to healthy foods are also determinants of community health.

Health outcome data

The data include morbidity and mortality data. Mortality outlines death patterns in terms of age, gender and cause of death. For the purpose of this assessment, mortality data related to cancer, heart disease, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and stroke will be sought as they are the leading cause of deaths in the New York. Morbidity data, on the other hand, provides vital information on types of disease and disability..

Methods of Data Collection

Focus Groups
Community members of different ages, sexes, race and ethnic backgrounds, and lifestyles will be recruited to participate in focus groups. A focus group is a discussion around a specific topic of interest (Gill et al, 2008). The various focus groups chosen discuss and present their views regarding the causes of heart diseases and possible interventions.

Community Health Assets

Community health assets refer to data on mortality and morbidity that can be obtained from the local health institutions. The data can be obtained from hospital records, sickness record, and health records of children, sickness records, and census

Key Informant Interviews

Key informants refer to health and community professionals who are well acquainted with inhabitants and geographic areas within Albany, New York. Informants aid in deep understanding of the health issue at hand and also provide information on the most vulnerable population. The interviews will be a combination of structured and open ended. The interviews will be recorded and later analyzed so as to reveal important themes concerning the health issue and the geographic area.

References

Heron M. (2012). Deaths: Leading causes for 2008. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22827019
Minkler, M. (2012). Community organizing and community building for health and welfare (3rd ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
World Health Organization (2014). The top 10 causes of death. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/