Ch 12 Stanhope: Foundations for Population Health in Community/Public Health Nursing 5th Edition|2023 LATEST UPDATE|GUARANTEED SUCCESS

Community A group of people, often living in a defined geographical area, who may share a common culture, values and norms, and are arranged in a social structure according to relationships which the community has developed over time. aggregate This is a collection of individuals who have in common one or more personal or environmental characteristics. Change agent Nurses can act as content experts, helping communities select and attain task-related goals. In the example of infant malnutrition, the nurse can use epidemiological skills to determine the incidence and prevalence of malnutrition. The nurse can serve as a process expert by increasing the community's ability to document the problem rather than by providing help only as an expert in the area. change partner the nurse whose role is to act as an enabler-catalyst, teacher of problem-solving skills, and activist advocate with the client to create a positive outcome on the client's behalf. community assessment One of the core functions, which involves getting to know the community. It is a logical, systematic approach to identifying community needs, clarifying problems, and identifying community strengths and resources. community competence This is a process whereby the parts of a community—organizations, groups, and aggregates—"are able to collaborate effectively in identifying the problems and needs of the community; can achieve a working consensus on goals and priorities; can agree on ways and means to implement the agreed-on goals; and can collaborate effectively in the required actions" Community as a client Although the nurse may work with individuals, families or other interacting groups, aggregates, institutions, communities, or within a population, the resulting changes are intended to affect the whole community. Community health This has three common characteristics or dimensions: status, structure, and process. Status it involves biological, emotional, and social parts. The biological (or physical) part of community health is often measured by traditional morbidity and mortality rates, life expectancy indices, and risk factor profiles. structure Measures of community health services and resources include service use patterns, treatment data from various health agencies, and provider-to-client ratios. These data provide information, such as the number of available hospital beds or the number of emergency room visits to a particular hospital. Community-oriented practice the nurse and community seek healthful change together. Their common goal of community health involves an ongoing series of health-promoting changes rather than a fixed state. The most effective means of completing healthy changes in the community is through this same partnership. Community partnership When the lay community members have a vested interest in the success of efforts to improve the health of their community. Lay community members who are recognized as community leaders also possess credibility and skills that health professionals often lack. Community-focused nursing process: The phases of the nursing process that directly involve the community client as partner begin at the start of the contract or partnership and include assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. database Assessing community health requires the following three steps: 1. Gathering relevant existing data and generating missing data 2. Developing a composite database 3. Interpreting the composite database to identify community problems and strengths data collection to get usable information about the community and its health. The systematic collection of data about community health requires the following: • Gathering or compiling existing data • Generating missing data • Interpreting data • Identifying community health problems and community abilities