Community health assessment is the collecting, analyzing and using data to educate and mobilize communities, develop priorities, gather resources, and plan actions to advance the public’s health (Minnesota Department of Health, n.d.). A community health assessment delivers the groundwork for cultivating and promoting the health of the community. Evaluating environmental health risks in communities requires models characterizing geographic and demographic patterns of exposure to multiple stressors.
Community health assessment is likewise important because it allows for effective education and mobilization of communities to reshape their quality of living. A perfect example of the important of community health assessment came from an article by Chiu, Noe, Martin, Wolkin & Vagi (2014). The article discusses the population-based household survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and North Dakota Department of Health (NDDoH); and to help the National Weather Service (NWS) in obtaining public feedback on its extreme cold warning piloted from January 18-April 15 2012. The Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) was used to assess community knowledge and needs in Burleigh County.
There are viral examples of contributive health and social factors leading to community collapse. One of the reasons for the failure is due to absent of public health assessment. Secondly, members of the communities were not willing to participate in the development and improvement of their communities. High unemployment rates and lack of education are two of the contributive factors that Belize’s public health problems identified in the media. These factors have contributed to many public health issues, such as family health deterioration and increased in disease outcomes leading to death.
Education is power and only educated leaders take the community to the heights of success. Therefore, education plays a vital role in the success and development of any community. It is important to note how unemployment brings with it despair, unhappiness and anguish. For a community like Belize, unemployment is high. Sadly to say, unemployment touches not just a community member himself but also his/her family and in the long run the whole community where he lives (Belle & Bullock, n.d.).
References:
Minnesota Department of Health. (n.d.). Community Health Assessment. Retrieved September 2, 2015 from http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/pm/lphap/cha/
Belle, D. & Bullock, H., E. (n.d.). The Psychological Consequences of Unemployment. The
CHIU, C. H., NOE, R. S., MARTIN, J. P., WOLKIN, A. F., & VAGI, S. J. (2014). THE USE OF COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT FOR PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO EVALUATE NWS WARNINGS. Bulletin Of The American Meteorological Society, 95(1), 18-21
