Community assessment: Nursing

A community assessment is a systematic process used to detail the health needs within a community, which is a group of people who live in the same area or share certain experiences, values or characteristics as the community health nurse, you'll conduct a community assessment to promote the health and wellbeing of the people within it.

Now, a community assessment can be performed to highlight a community's strengths and assets, identify needs or confirm the presence of a recognized problem.

Priority problems can be brought to community leaders and partners to inform health policies and plans. A community assessment can also provide data on the progress of existing public health initiatives and ensure goals and standards are being met.

All right. So before you begin your community assessment, you'll first identify the community of interest which includes the geographic area and the people within it.

Keep in mind that as a community health nurse, the community is your client. So the goal of your nursing interventions is to improve the health and wellbeing of the community as a whole.

This can often involve addressing environmental factors, impacting the health of the entire community, like advocating for access to clean water or taking steps to revise the speed limit near sensitive areas like parks.

But it can also involve providing individual treatments for problems that can have far ranging effects on the community like addressing intimate partner violence or reducing the risk of a community epidemic by treating a patient with active tuberculosis, start your assessment by gathering data about the community from primary and secondary sources.

Primary data is collected directly through interactions with community members using interviews, focus groups or surveys at other times.

Primary data can be collected through participant observation. This is when you share in the life of the community by attending a local social event like a fair or festival.

Another way to collect primary data is by performing a windshield survey which involves driving around to get an overall sense of the community.

If driving around the community isn't an option. A walking survey is a good alternative.

During your survey, you may notice the types of houses of worship present in the community. If there are parks with open space where Children can play safely or if there's evidence of public transportation like bus stops at local grocery stores.

You may also notice if there are vacant lots, potential sources of pollution such as heavy industries and plants and the number of fast food restaurants that are within walking distance of neighborhoods.

Additionally, your survey can identify the presence of resources such as health clinics and opportunities for socialization like sports facilities or community centers.

During your survey, you'll speak to people in the community to gather information from individuals or groups on the social determinants of health that affect them, including employment prospects, the quality of public education and opportunities for homeownership.

You'll also identify community members who are exposed to increased health risks. Like people who are unhoused, those with disabilities or those who have experienced family disruptions due to violence or incarceration.

Next, obtain secondary data from existing sources like census reports or health statistics like information from the local health department on morbidity and mortality rates, sociodemographic characteristics, crime statistics and health indicators within the community.

Keep in mind that your data collection may continue for weeks or months. So be sure to plan enough time to complete the assessment.

Once your data collection is complete, organize and analyze the data you've collected. Look for trends, similarities and differences between the primary and secondary data to create a problem list of the priority health needs of the community along with the community's assets, sometimes prioritizing community needs can be challenging like when data from primary and secondary conflict.

For example, secondary data like birth rate statistics might show a growing need for more resources for childcare. While primary data collected during a town hall meeting indicates a more pressing need for elder care services.

In such cases, you can discuss your findings with community stakeholders and other key informants. You can also use ethical concepts to guide you such as utilitarianism where a priority problem is one that affects a large population of the community or justice where advocating for vulnerable populations is a priority.

Finally, you can rank the problems you've identified in your assessment using criteria like the community's motivation to address the problem, the availability of expertise and resources needed to solve the problem or the severity of outcomes.

If the problem is not resolved after you have identified the most important problems to address, you can create a community nursing diagnosis to clarify the target population and identify the factors that have contributed to the problem.

A community nursing diagnosis should also clearly state the priority problem, explain its relationship to community health and provide supporting data to document the problem.

An example might be increased risk for infectious disease outbreak related to limited access to clean water, as evidenced by a 20% increase in rates of waterborne illnesses within the last six months.

Once you've established your community health nursing diagnosis, you'll work with community members and leaders to plan and implement your interventions by setting realistic goals and outcomes, identifying interventions to help reach the goals and identifying ways to measure the outcomes.

Be sure your interventions are supported by community stakeholders that the community's problems and strengths are considered and that needed resources are attainable and available within the community.

Finally, after implementation, you'll evaluate whether goals have been met to the satisfaction of the community. If the goals have only been partially met or not met at all.

You'll gather additional data and revise the plan as needed. All right.

As a quick recap, a community assessment is a systematic process to identify health needs within a community. With the aim of promoting the health and wellbeing of its members.

As the community health nurse, you'll conduct a community assessment by collecting and analyzing data about a community's characteristics, strengths and problems, plan goals and implement interventions to address priority problems and evaluate whether the goals have been met.