Community health
Community health refers to simple health services that are delivered by laymen outside hospitals and clinics. Community health is also the subset of public health that is taught to and practiced by clinicians as part of their normal duties. Community health volunteers and community health workers work with primary care providers to facilitate entry into, exit from and utilization of the formal health system by community members.[citation needed]
Community health is a major field of study within the medical and clinical sciences which focuses on the maintenance, protection, and improvement of the health status of population groups and communities. It is a distinct field of study that may be taught within a separate school of
The success of community health programs relies upon the transfer of information from health professionals to the general public using one-to-one or one-to-many communication (mass communication). The latest shift is towards health marketing.
Community health services are classified into categories including:
- Preventive health services such as chemoprophylaxis for Tuberculosis, cancer screening and treatment of diabetes and hypertension.
- nutritionalsupplementation
- .
- Counselling and other Mental healthservices.
Community health workers and volunteers
Community health workers (also known as community health assistants and community health officers) are local public health workers with a deep understanding of their community's health needs and challenges. They serve as a bridge between their community and local health systems to ensure high quality and culturally competent service delivery.[3] They have vocational, professional or academic qualifications which enable them to provide training, supervisory, administrative, teaching and research services in community health departments.[citation needed]
Community health volunteers are members of a local community who have experience and training on the health problems prevalent in their community and care services available, in order to identify and link those in need with local providers. Community health volunteers may be referred to by different titles depending on their local health system; these titles can included lay health workers, health volunteers, village health agents, non-specialist healthcare providers, and village health agents.[4]
Community health volunteers provide basic services such as distribution of water chlorination tablets, mosquito nets and health education material. They will involve or work with registered clinicians when they encounter sick or recovering patients or those with complex or ongoing needs.[citation needed]
Community health organizations are non-profit and non government organization which administers and coordinates the delivery of health care services to people living in a designated community or neighborhood. It helps people understand their status of health or social conditions. Providing advocacy for those who need it and holding groups and individual meetings with people in the community. The vital role is advocating for the rights and interests of their community members. They raise awareness about issues affecting their community by research, dialogues and lobby for policies and programs that address those issues.
Measuring community health
Community health is generally measured by
Social media can also play a big role in health information analytics.[9] Studies have found social media being capable of influencing people to change their unhealthy behaviors and encourage interventions capable of improving health status.[9] Social media statistics combined with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) may provide researchers with a more complete image of community standards for health and well being.[10][11]
Categories of community health
Primary Healthcare and Primary Prevention
Community-based health promotion emphasizes
Primary prevention refers to the early avoidance and identification of risk factors that may lead to certain diseases and disabilities. Community-focused efforts including
Secondary Healthcare and Secondary Prevention
Community health can also be improved with improvements in individuals' environments. Community health status is determined by the environmental characteristics, behavioral characteristics,
Tertiary Healthcare
In
Conventional Ambulatory Medical Care In Clinics or Outpatient Departments | Disease Control Programs | People-Centered Primary Care |
---|---|---|
Focus on illness and cure | Focus on priority diseases | Focus on health needs |
Relationship limited to the moment of consultation | Relationship limited to program implementation | Enduring personal relationship |
Episodic curative care | Program-defined disease control interventions | Comprehensive, continuous and personcentred care |
Responsibility limited to effective and safe advice to the patient at the moment of consultation | Responsibility for disease-control targets among the target population | Responsibility for the health of all in the community along the life cycle; responsibility for tackling determinants of ill-health |
Users are consumers of the care they purchase | Population groups are targets of disease-control interventions | People are partners in managing their own health and that of their community |
Challenges and difficulties in community health
The complexity of community health and its various problems can make it difficult for researchers to assess and identify solutions.
Other issues involve access and cost of medical care. A great majority of the world does not have adequate health insurance.[18] In low-income countries, less than 40% of total health expenditures are paid for by the public/government.[18] Community health, even Population health, is not encouraged as health sectors in developing countries are not able to link the national authorities with the local government and community action.[18]
In the
Ethnic disparities in health statuses among different communities are also a cause of concern. Community coalition-driven interventions may bring benefits to this segment of society.[21] This also relates to language usage, where results from a 2019 systematic review found that patients with limited English proficiency who received care from physicians who communicate in the patient's own preferred language generally had improved health outcomes.[22]
Community health also requires clear communication to properly address health issues, disparities, and complications. Health communication is the concept that applies communication evidence, strategy, theory, and creativity to promote behaviors, policies, and practices that advance the health and well-being of people and populations. Communicating health care can be limited by a few factors, which are important to recognize to best apply community health practices. To better understand and provide community health from a provider and consumer perspective, limitations in concepts like scientific complexity like uncertainty. [23] When using an example such as environmental health, scientific complexity can be summarized with environmental health risks often involve complex scientific concepts that can be difficult to understand. Use plain language and visual aids to simplify complex information. Uncertainty in community health exists when the scientific understanding of environmental health risks may be incomplete or uncertain. Knowing details about how communities work, specific to the individual can also play a role in a better understanding.Transparency about the limitations of knowledge and ongoing research efforts.[24] Emphasize the precautionary principle and the importance of taking preventive actions even in the face of uncertainty. These are concepts that can make it difficult to understand environmental/limiting communication about population health. Examples of successful community health initiatives can include projects addressing the issues that complicate the subject. For example, promotions for understanding, as well as initiatives working towards already acknowledged health issues in each community.
Community health resolutions
Each community is different and should create its own Community Health Improvement Process also known as CHIP.[25] A CHIP consists of problem identification and prioritization cycle along with an analysis and implementation cycle. Five strategies that assist the CHIP process are improving community health and well-being; community involvement, political commitment; healthy public policy; multi-sectoral collaboration; and asset-based community development. An asset-based approach involves empowering individuals and communities by focusing on community strengths along with the skills of the individuals.[25][26]
The
The Problem identification and prioritization cycle have three phases that help benefit the community which is forming a health coalition, collecting and analyzing data for health profile, and identifying critical health issues. The information that is gathered is also distributed to the community to help with important decision-making.[25]
Following this cycle is the Analysis and Implementation Cycle which helps resolve community health problems by analyzing the health issue, establishing resources, creating a health improvement strategy with the resources, and allocating responsibility throughout the community.[25] Multiple issues are analyzed in conjunction to determine which is most important. Lastly, the authority to act is implemented, sufficient funds are allocated and access to data is released in order for the members of the community to review and move accordingly.[25]
Community health in the Global South
Access to community health in the Global South is influenced by geographic accessibility (physical distance from the service delivery point to the user), availability (proper type of care, service provider, and materials), financial accessibility (willingness and ability of users to purchase services), and acceptability (responsiveness of providers to social and cultural norms of users and their communities).
Community development is frequently used as a public health intervention to empower communities to obtain self-reliance and control over the factors that affect their health.[32] Community health workers are able to draw on their firsthand experience, or local knowledge, to complement the information that scientists and policy makers use when designing health interventions.[33] Interventions with community health workers have been shown to improve access to primary healthcare and quality of care in developing countries through reduced malnutrition rates, improved maternal and child health and prevention and management of HIV/AIDS.[34] Community health workers have also been shown to promote chronic disease management by improving the clinical outcomes of patients with diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases.[34]
Slum-dwellers in the Global South face threats of infectious disease, non-communicable conditions, and injuries due to violence and road traffic accidents.[35] Participatory, multi-objective slum upgrading in the urban sphere significantly improves social determinants that shape health outcomes such as safe housing, food access, political and gender rights, education, and employment status. Efforts have been made to involve the urban poor in project and policy design and implementation. Through slum upgrading, states recognize and acknowledge the rights of the urban poor and the need to deliver basic services. Upgrading can vary from small-scale sector-specific projects (i.e. water taps, paved roads) to comprehensive housing and infrastructure projects (i.e. piped water, sewers). Other projects combine environmental interactions with social programs and political empowerment. Recently, slum upgrading projects have been incremental to prevent the displacement of residents during improvements and attentive to emerging concerns regarding climate change adaptation. By legitimizing slum-dwellers and their right to remain, slum upgrading is an alternative to slum removal and a process that in itself may address the structural determinants of population health.[35]
Kenya
Community health refers to the first level of health services provision in Kenya that comprises;
- Interventions focusing on building demand for existing health and related services, by improving community awareness and health seeking behavior and 2. Taking defined interventions and services as defined in (Kenya Health Sector Strategic and investment plan KHSSP) close to the community and households.
The current registered association for community Health professionals in Kenya is The Society of Community Health Caregivers.[36] It was registered in the year 2020 to act as an umbrella body for the community health professionals.
Academic resources
- ISSN 1099-3460(paper).
- International Quarterly of Community Health Education, ISSN 0272-684X(paper).
- ISSN 1744-1692(paper).
- ISSN 1573-3610.
- Family and Community Health, ISSN 0160-6379(electronic).
- ISSN 1524-8399(paper).
- Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, ISSN 1355-8196(paper).
- BMC Health Sciences Research, ISSN 1472-6963(electronic).
- Health Services Research, ISSN 1475-6773(electronic).
- Health Communication and Literacy: An Annotated Bibliography, Centre for Literacy of Quebec. ISBN 0968103456.
See also
- Community health agent
- Community health center
- Community mental health service
- Online health communities
- Prison reform
- University of Community Health, Magway
References
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- ^ a b Rosenbaum SJ, Shin P, Jones E, Tolbert J (2010). "Community Health Centers: Opportunities and Challenges of Health Reform". Health Sciences Research Commons.
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- ^ https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/describe-the-community/main
- ^ https://www.tfah.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Examplesbystate1009.pdf
- ^ a b c d e Health, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Using Performance Monitoring to Improve Community; Durch, Jane S.; Bailey, Linda A.; Stoto, Michael A. (1997). A Community Health Improvement Process. National Academies Press (US).
- ^ "How to build healthy communities? | PlanH". planh.ca. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
- ^ "A Healthy Community is a Prepared Community | Blogs | CDC". 18 September 2015. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
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- ^ "Society of Community Health Care Givers". www.societyofcommunityhealth.org. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
Further reading
- Agafonow, Alejandro (2018). "Setting the bar of social enterprise research high. Learning from medical science". Social Science & Medicine. 214: 49–56. S2CID 52126531.
- John Sanbourne Bockoven (1963). Moral Treatment in American Psychiatry, New York: Springer Publishing Co.[ISBN missing]