Posted: August 27th, 2022

Community Needs Assessment

Community Needs Assessment

Introduction
A community is referred to as a group of individuals socially connected, and they have mutual interests and views. As a group of individuals, a community can be or not be geographically connected. Moreover, community members are usually described by typical features, including language, age, religion, culture, and locality (Blank, Weiss, Walker, 2019). Nevertheless, many communities are not homogeneous because of language diversity. Furthermore, a vigorous community is developed by leaders who offer direction in public wants as resource evaluation. On the other hand, a healthy community encourages public health, supports social infrastructure as well as policies. Such a community has features such as ecosystem constancy, robust and supportive individuals, clean and safe environment, reasonable access to public resources, and high public participation rates (Sykes, 2012). Additionally, the major goal of a vigorous community is to observe the course of healthcare and society analysis through community evaluation. The paper will identify an unmet need in my local community, which is deteriorating healthcare.
Community Assessment
Community assessment is referred to the circumstance where members of the community are helped to understand and identify their health concerns, the healthcare system needs as well as other communal needs through the process of identification, gathering information, analysis, and data distribution on their requirements, assets, and strengths (Krumwiede, Van Gelderen & Krumwiede, 2014). Moreover, community evaluation includes finding and placing priorities based on the requirements and management on the enhancement of the community based on the resources available. The evaluation goals and objectives focus on guiding the whole assessment process. On the other hand, the distribution of data on community evaluation is important in enlightening its members on the evaluation results and healthiness problems that impact the community (Blank, Weiss, Walker, 2019). Essentially, the assessment also educates the community on their wants which is important for achievement planning as well as developing a passion for actions and advocacy.
Community Health Assessment
The focus of this paper will be based on the Bronx community. This is a community mainly comprised of children and females. Most individuals in this community are very relaxed; furthermore, this community is a densely populated county in the U.S. and ranks at the third position. From the gathered information, the neighborhood includes preschoolers, the elderly and young mothers. The Windshield survey shows that the Bronx population comprises a diverse population; including 10% Asians, 38% Latino, 48% Blacks, and 4% other groups (Krumwiede, Van Gelderen & Krumwiede, 2014). Approximately 12% of the total community members are not proficient English speakers. 78% of the community’s total population lives in poverty, 12% are not insured, and 52% of the population has Medicaid. The majority of the respondents for the assessment will be individuals aged 45 years and individuals aged between 20 and 80 (Sridharan, 2011).
Strengths of the Community
The community has various strengths, such as good infrastructure resources, effective communication, and public transportation. Several healthcare facilities have specialized in treating diseases that impact the population. For instance, healthcare facilities treat respiratory diseases, diabetes, ad cardiovascular illnesses (Krumwiede, Van Gelderen & Krumwiede, 2014). Moreover, the healthcare professionals in the society offer chances to enhance the sick. The healthcare professionals hired in the healthcare centers are well equipped and trained; hence, they can offer better services (Pitts, 2013).
Furthermore, the nurses follow the community ethics as well as culture; therefore, they find it easy to interact freely with the community members and educate them on the health issue they may encounter (National Organization of Human Services). The healthcare centers in the Bronx have new machines that aid in diagnosing diseases in the early stages. For adults, they are screened for illnesses such as cancer with assistance from medical professionals who have specialized in operating the machines. Individuals with diabetes and other illnesses are assisted by the healthcare facilities hence ensuring enhanced well-being. Additionally, the community healthcare professionals educate the general public by developing awareness of various diseases and identifying the diseases early and prevention measures to take.
Weaknesses of the Community.
Most community members of Bronx are very ignorant in regards to attending healthcare lessons that local nurses have organized. Moreover, the healthcare facilities are poorly equipped with scanning machines in spite of the increasing population of individuals requiring these services. As mentioned earlier, Bronx has a very high population, meaning the community is very ignorant of family planning programs offered in the facilities (Blank, Weiss, Walker, 2019). Most community members fail to attend important lessons introduced to help them learn how to prevent some diseases that affect the community. As a result, they end up overwhelming the health facilities when preventable diseases strike them while they have easily taken care of the disease at home. Even though community healthcare facilities are reasonably equipped with specialized screening machines, there are no machines to help professionals scan cancer-related diseases. Therefore, individuals who need specialized treatment are usually transferred to other hospitals in other capable communities.
Assets and Issues of the Community
The available individual and organizational assets in the community facilitate the success of healthcare in the population. Some examples of personal assets are as talents, skills, and experiences of the community members. These individual assets help individuals to offer first aid services to people who require the service. Wealthy people, ad entrepreneurs have invested in the Bronx community through personal income and local enterprises. All of these resources are beneficial to healthcare providers. Furthermore, members of the community offer support to healthcare facilities through their responsibilities and talents, for instance, leadership. Additionally, there are also public, physical, and private assets in the community that tend to enhance the living standards and well-being of the community members, for instance, ambulances, libraries, police stations, and higher learning institutions.
Bronx Community Health Problems
The major issue affecting the Bronx community is increased death rates. The present healthcare facilities are unable to accommodate all individuals seeking medical treatment on a daily basis, hence leading to inequity to healthcare services (Krumwiede, Van Gelderen & Krumwiede, 2014). Another challenge to this community is the reducing nurse to patient ratio, inadequate facilities, and reducing disparities. Moreover, as a result of ignorance from the community to attend health lessons for preventable diseases, the community has a high risk of increased deaths. Furthermore, physically disabled individuals lack supporting infrastructure for their wheelchairs in most buildings. There is also poor allocation of infrastructure in the area, which makes it challenging for individuals living in the interior to get urgent services. Moreover, the primary cause of society deaths is unremitting illnesses that do not get noticed early. Another issue with this community is environmental pollution that affects asthmatic children; the air quality is low due to adults smoking cigarettes and bhang hence exposing their kids to the risk of asthma.
Diagnosis, Goals, and Objectives of Community Health
Community health nurses usually diagnose most problems linked to public health. A major health issue affecting Bronx community youths is HIV/AIDS. Moreover, the Bronx community’s poor environmental health needs immediate action to reduce the health issues. The assessment focuses on getting better services for enhanced life expectation through the deterrence of illnesses, death, injuries, and disability. Utilization of testing technologies for early decreases the rate of cancer strikes (Krumwiede, Van Gelderen & Krumwiede, 2014). Furthermore, the second goal is to get justness in health services by getting rid of health inequality; therefore, all healthcare professionals will serve the population despite the age or status of the individual. More healthcare professionals ought to be employed to even the ratio of nurse to patient. Additionally, increased healthcare facilities will decrease delayed treatments. Lastly, there needs to be the creation of awareness by educating community members on measures to take to be healthy.
Conclusion
Bronx community is a small and diverse community located in New York City. However, the community is the third most populated community in the United States. The general objective of this paper is to identify an unmet need in my local community, conduct a community needs assessment plan, and develop a logic model that would present all the components and how they interact with each other to offer graphical support of the entire analysis. Throughout the paper, I have evaluated the health needs in the Bronx community and developed a plan to develop better living standards to increase the community’s lifespan. Upon accomplishment of the goal, the community will have health records and improved healthcare; hence there will be a minimal transfer of patients to other major healthcare facilities in other communities. The installation of modern screening machines will enable the community to experience enhanced healthcare.

References
Blank, A. E., Weiss, E. S., Walker, E. A. (2019). Bronx Community Collaborative Opportunities for Research and Education: Implementation and Evaluation of a Community-Academic Partnership. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 13(3), 273-282. doi:10.1353/cpr.2019.0055
Krumwiede, K. A., Van Gelderen, S. A., & Krumwiede, N. K. (2014). Academic-Hospital Partnership: Conducting a Community Health Needs Assessment as a Service- Learning Project. Public Health Nursing, 32(4), 359-367. doi:10.1111/phn.12159
National Organization of Human Services. (n.d.). Ethical standards for human services professionals. https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals
Pitts, S. B., Hengel, C. E., Ammerman, A. S. (2013). A Community Assessment to Inform a Multilevel Intervention to Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Risk Disparities in a Rural Community. Family & Community Health, 36(2), 135-146. doi:10.1097/fch.0b013e31828212be
Sridharan, S., & Nakaima, A. (2011). Ten steps to making evaluation matter. Evaluation and Program Planning, 34(2), 135‒146.
Sykes, S. (2012). Health Needs Assessment and the Community Nurse. Community Health Care Nursing, 61-73. doi: 10.1002/9781444316247.ch5

Appendix: Community Needs Assessment
A Logic Model
INPUTS
ACTIVITIES
OUTPUTS
OUTCOMES
Staff.
Volunteers.
Time.
Money.
Research.
Materials.
Equipment.
Technology

Identify community needs.
Evaluation of goals and objectives.
Developing an action for health issues.
Increasing nurse-patient ratio.
Public awareness education.

Participants
Patients.
Bronx Community
Change in:

Healthcare.
Community health awareness.
Nurse-patient ratio.
Health facility equipment.

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