Community Nursing Final

Nathaniel Goleno

Youngstown State University

NURS 4844

Dr. Heasley & Dr. Class

12 December, 2023
Essay Prompt 1: Differentiate community health from public health including the concept of

community. Explain the connection between public health nursing and acute care

nursing. Discuss one historical event that has influenced the development of community health

nursing. Describe one way a community health nurse can impact legislation and the political

process.

Community and public health are two avenues of ideas that both work to accomplish the

same goal. The goal of improving overall health and well-being of a certain population. Public

health is recognized by the CDC as a study of improving a certain population’s health by

working to predict and analyze a potential threat to a group of people. The people who working

in the public health space are the people responsible for finding ways to make sure their

population has everything they need to be a healthy individual. They work to predict shortages of

food and fresh water and take preemptive steps to ensure that people will not be caught out

without the basic needs for human survival. Public health officials are also the ones responsible

for mostly all health hazards a population would face. Officials will analyze a spread of a

particular outbreak or disease and interpret who is at risk, give procedure on how the population

should best proceed when faced with the risk of infection or disease, and much more to ensure

that the people can be as safe as possible. As public health looks at the population through a

purely medical lens community health can take you down a different route that can lead to a

overall more healthy population. Community health looks at socioeconomic factors and cultural

challenges that may have a negative impact on a individual’s or populations health. The CDC

recognizes that community health works to cut down the inequality of health and opportunities to

be healthy based on different criteria like proximity to care, income and social status, and many
other factors that could impact your ability to be healthy. These healthcare professionals work to

get in contact with the population and provide access to care, patient education programs, and

provide a much-needed bridge to healthcare for those who are unable to have access to it without

them. A historical event that really shows the impact community health nursing can have is a

recent one. The covid-19 pandemic in 2020 was one of the biggest outbreaks in history and will

be an important example to use going forward when discussing community health. The virus was

prevalent in low socioeconomic populations, the elderly population, among many other groups of

people in the world. The development of Covid-19 vaccines was groundbreaking but without the

proper system in place to rollout the vaccines they would not have been able to be used by those

who wanted and needed the vaccine. All over the United States the vaccines were rolled out to

all local pharmacies, health centers, and anywhere someone would go to seek healthcare the

vaccines were there for those who wanted it to protect themselves. The most important part of

the community health system is the nurses who run it. They are the ones doing the outreach to

the less fortunate and they are the ones who have the knowledge background to make real change

in their communities. They must be the ones who bring forward any needs that they have to local

decision makers to ensure the health of their community.

Essay Prompt 2: Discuss the risk factors and special complications of childbearing families.

What are some important considerations in developing a health promotion program for this

population? Describe the effects of poverty, as a significant social determinant of health, on the

health of the school-age child. What major health problems exist for the school-age child?

Briefly describe how health status influences academic achievement.

Childbearing families face unique challenges when it comes to being healthy that

individuals that do not have children face. There are many important risks that could negatively

affect the overall health of family. With the parents being the head of a family and responsible

for their children makes them the most important figures in making sure that the family is at its

healthiest it can be. When you consider certain populations that would warrant a higher risk of

family health than others would be the ones where parents are not able, or they are ineffectively

providing a healthy environment for children. A major risk factor is when the parents are not

spending time in the house with the children to provide nutritious foods, clean drinking water,

and giving their children access to health care. There could be many reasons that the parents

would not be able to do this, many homes today are single parent households, or both parents

need to work and are not able to be around the children, low socioeconomic status and the family

is not educated. I think the best way to implement a health promotion program for these families

is to start in the schools. Educate the children and use the founding that the school gets and

provide access to health care and education to the families that want it and need some assistance

when it comes to getting a primary care provider, access to quality foods, and fresh drinking

water. In 2021 the poverty line for a family of three was $23,000 per year and 11.6% of families

fell below that line. When looking at the school age children there are many problems that they
face that would negatively affect their health. Growing numbers of children in the United States

are becoming obese due to lack of proper diet and nutritional intake. Childhood obesity puts you

at risk for being obese as an adult, not getting the physical activity you need to be healthy and

increases your chances to develop a chronic disease later in their life. Not only could these things

negatively impact their health, but it can also show a decline of their academic standard. There is

research that shows low socioeconomic families have children that have a lower cognitive ability

when being compared to their higher income children’s counterparts. They are also to be seen

with worse standardized test scores, less likely to go to college, or take advance placement

classes, not as good of an attendance record and are less likely to graduate high school based on

their family’s low income. All these factors put low income student behind the 8 ball in school

and in most cases the child is not able to make up that lost ground from the vert beginning. There

are many challenges that these children are faced with in school through no fault of their own

and our job as a community health worker is provide access to the resources, they need to be

healthy and successful.

Essay Prompt 4: Discuss the global and national health status and concerns of older adults,

homeless, and disabled persons. Include misconceptions and characteristics of healthy older

adults and discuss chronic conditions commonly found in the older adult population.

Discuss examples of levels of prevention in the older adult population.

When looking at global population around 10-12% of the world’s population is over the

age of 65. Approximately 18.5% of people over the age of 65 in the United States are considered

homeless, that does not mean they are living on the street though. That number includes all the

people who live in shelters and federally or state funded locations that are there to provide a roof

over our older population’s head. There are many health concerns that older adults must think

about. It is very likely that by the time they have reached 65 years old they have already

developed some sort of chronic disease that can be a great burden on them and greatly affect

their day to day lives. According to the CDC the most common chronic diseases that an aging

adult would come across are dementia, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. Have just

one of these diseases would slow down mostly any 65-year-old. The CDC also talks about how

the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and dementias is increased as you age and in the United States

there are over 17 million people over 65 with Alzheimer’s disease and dementias, there are iver

27 million over 65 in the United States that suffer from some sort of arthritis and over 38% of all

heart disease patients are over the gave of 65. The aging adults has many health risks to be

concerned about and sometimes it is up to the community health workers to give them the

resources they need to remain healthy for as long as possible throughout their older adult years.

There are many steps we can take as a health care professional and even just as a people in the

population that would help aging adults live a more healthy and active life. Community nurses
have to be the ones giving care to our older adult population and making sure that they have

access to healthcare or the ability to have a full or part time caregiver that is provided by

insurance or publicly funded for those with Alzheimer’s disease and dementias. Provide

screenings for other chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease and

hypertension. Have vaccines for all the seasonal viruses for the older adult population available

for those who want the, and ensuring the fact that they can get to all their scheduled

appointments and having public transportation access or taxi services that can get them to where

they need to be to receive the care they need. The best thing we can do as community health

workers is to watch out for the older adults and make sure they get in to see a doctor so that if a

chronic disease does come up they can quickly get into an exam room and diagnosed for the best

outcome possible because early detection of many chronic diseases can change the future for the

better and sometimes fix the problem before it even gets started just by talking to a doctor.
 References:

12, March, et al. “Understanding the Difference between Public Health and Community
Health.” AdventHealth University, www.ahu.edu/blog/understanding-the-difference-
between-public-health-and-community-health. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.

Bureau, US Census. “National Poverty in America Awareness Month: January

2023.” Census.Gov, 20 Dec. 2022, www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/poverty-awareness-
month.html.

“Promoting Health for Older Adults.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 8 Sept. 2022,
www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/promoting-health-for-older-
adults.htm#:~:text=Aging%20increases%20the%20risk%20of,death%2C%20and
%20health%20care%20costs.

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