Features of CHN

Community Health Nursing has three features: people, location and, social system ( Allender et
al.,2009). These three features are different from each other yet they have the same denominator, they
all affect the conditions of a certain community. Having said that, it is important to know what are the
key roles of each features in affecting the health of the community.

The first feature and I believe the most important feature is the people. In each community, there
are varieties of people, different age, size, race, occupation, health belief, principles, level of education
and so many more, therefore their health needs also vary from each other. In our barangay, especially
in our Purok/Sitio, I observed in every household, one family member is suffering from Pulmonary
Tuberculosis, there are 13 house hold in our kanto, and out of 13 house hold, only 4 house hold do not
have a family member that is suffering from tuberculosis, of course, one of that is our family. I asked
myself what is the reason behind that trend, after some hours of analyzation, I finally found two possible
reason why there is a trend of tuberculosis in our kanto, it is because it easily spread and our neighbor
are not aware of that, their level of perception regarding the disease is the sole reason, if I am going to
dig deeper, it is the level of education and the social class are the main reason. I observed that those
people suffering from the disease are bicycle drivers who did not finish secondary level and their family
belongs to the indigent family. Based on the situation in our kanto, I can say that our small community is
a COVID high risk area since there are a lot of high risk individuals that is why my family is strictly
implementing the minimum health standards, I personally do not open our gate if someone is knocking,
I make sure first that they are wearing mask before I entertain them. I do believe that the barangay
health workers in our community is not affective because only one out of the 8 persons suffering from
the disease undergone a treatment. This problem must be properly address because it is really alarming
but at the end of the day, what I can only do is to advise them to go the city health office and have a
treatment and always be careful when interacting with them. They knew that they have the disease but
they are not doing something to treat that and that is the problem, the people’s mindset and perception
of the disease. To sum it up, the community I am living with is in need of tuberculosis related assistance.

The second feature of Community Health Nursing is the location. Our barangay is a busybee
barangay, an urban area where people are not sleeping, whether it is 12 noon or 12 in the morning,
there are always people in the streets. I believed that location of our barangay attributed to the health
problems of our small community, the outdoor pollution such as smoke from vehicles and one factory
that uses hard chemicals to clean their dirt really affected the health of our small community.

The third feature of community health nursing is the social system, I honestly do not fully
understand this feature and how can I relate to my own community, I only know that our social system
in our kanto is not as healthy as the other, some of our neighborhood do not really talk to each other
and do not get along well so the relationship is affected as well as the health of the community. I am
praying and hoping that the assigned personnel or department must address the community’s problem
properly and effectively. The health care delivery system, the most important, in promoting health and
maintenance of health must do its role as soon as possible.