Chapter 1 And 2 Study Guide Flashcards
What are the similarities between public health and community health?
Organized community efforts aimed at the promotion, protection, and preservation of the public’s health
What are the differences between public health and community health?
Community health
-The identification of needs, along with the protection and improvement of collective health, within a geographically defined area
Public health
-A broader concept and often goes beyond community boundaries, dealing with populations around the world
-Seeks to provide organizational structure, a broad set of resources, and the collaborative activities needed to accomplish the goal of an optimally healthy community
-Promotes and protects the health of people and the communities both locally and and globally (preventing disease and injury by promoting healthy lifestyles)
What are the unique characteristics of a community?
-Collection of people who interact with one another and whose common interests or characteristics form the basis for a sense of unity or belonging
-Can be a society of people holding common rights and privileges (e.g., citizens of a town), sharing common interests (e.g., a community of farmers), or living under the same laws and regulations (e.g., a prison community)
-The function of any community includes its members’ collective sense of belonging and their shared identity, values, norms, communication, and common interests and concerns
What are the unique characteristics of a population?
-All people occupying an area or all of those who share one or more characteristics
-Made up of people who do not necessarily interact with one another and do not necessarily share a sense of belonging to that group
-May be defined geographically (United States or a city’s population)
-Also may be defined by common qualities or characteristics (older adults, homeless, or particular racial or ethnic groups)
What is the community of solution? What is its purpose?
-A group of people who come together to solve a problem that affects all of them
-The shape of this type of community varies with the nature of the problem, the size of the geographic area affected, and the number of resources needed to address the problem
-A water pollution problem may involve several counties whose agencies and personnel must work together to control upstream water supply, industrial waste disposal, and city water treatment
1. This group of counties forms a community of solution focusing on a health problem
-Communities of solution have formed in many cities to address the spread of diseases and have worked with community members to assess public safety and security and create plans to make the community a safer place in which to live
What is wellness?
-Includes the definition of health but also incorporates the capacity to develop a person’s potential to lead a fulfilling and productive life-one that can be measured in terms of quality of life
-Greatly affected by our lifestyles, preventive measures we take, and risk behaviors in which we engage
What is illness?
A state of being relatively unhealthy
What are the differences between wellness and illness?
-Western societies often exhibit a polarized or “either/or” way of thinking about health: either people are healthy and well or they are ill
-Yet, wellness is a relative concept, not an absolute, and illness is a state of being relatively unhealthy
-There are many levels and degrees of wellness and illness, from a robust 75-year-old woman who is fully active and functioning at an optimal level of wellness to a 75-year-old man with end-stage renal disease whose health is characterized as frail
-Someone recovering from pneumonia may be mildly ill, whereas a teenage boy with functional limitations because of episodic depression may be described as mildly well
1. The continuum, however, can change
What are the leading health indicators?
-Access to health services
-Clinical preventive services
-Environmental Quality
-Injury and violence
-Maternal, infant, and child health
-Mental health
-Nutrition, physical activity, and obesity
-Oral Health
-Reproductive and sexual health
-Social determinants
-Substance abuse
-Tobacco
What is health promotion?
-All efforts that seek to move people closer to optimal well-being or higher levels of wellness
-Applies to:
1. Individuals
2. Families
3. Populations
4. Communities
What is the purpose of health promotion?
-Raise levels of wellness for individuals, families, populations, and communities
-Goals: Healthy People 2030
1. Attain healthy, thriving lives, free of preventable disease, disability, injury, and premature death
2. Achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups
3. Create social and physical environments that promote good health for all
4. Promote quality of life, healthy development, and healthy behaviors across all life stages
What are the differences between primary and secondary prevention?
-Primary prevention
1. Precludes the occurrence of a health problem; it includes measures taken to keep illness or injuries from occurring
2. It is applied to a generally healthy population and precedes disease or dysfunction
3. Involves anticipatory planning and action on the part of community/public health professionals, who must project themselves into the future, envision potential needs and problems, and then design programs to counteract them so that they never occur
-Secondary prevention
1. Involves efforts to detect and treat existing health problems at the earliest possible stage, when intervention is most likely to be effective in controlling or eradicating it
2. This is the goal behind testing of water and soil samples for contaminants and hazardous chemicals in the field of community environmental health
What are examples of primary prevention?
-Providing childhood vaccinations and yearly flu shots
-Encouraging older people to install and use safety devices (e.g., grab bars by bathtubs, handrails on steps) to prevent injuries from falls
-Teaching young adults healthy lifestyle behaviors, so that they can make them habitual behaviors for themselves and their children
-Working through a local health department in consultation with a school district to help control and prevent communicable diseases such as measles, pertussis, or varicella by providing regular immunization programs and vaccine oversight
-Instructing a group of overweight individuals on how to follow a well-balanced diet while losing weight to prevent nutritional deficiency
-Teaching safe sex practices or the dangers of smoking/vaping and substance abuse
-Serving on a fact-finding committee exploring the effects of a proposed toxic waste dump on the outskirts of town
What are examples of secondary prevention?
-Conducting community hypertension and cholesterol screening programs to help identify high-risk individuals and encourage early treatment to prevent heart attacks or stroke
-Encouraging breast and testicular self-examination, regular mammograms, and Pap smears for early detection of possible cancers and providing skin testing for tuberculosis
-Assessing for early signs of child abuse in a family, emotional disturbances among widows, or alcohol and drug abuse among adolescents
What is interprofessional collaboration?
-C/PHNs must work in cooperation with other team members, coordinating services and addressing the needs of population groups.
-This interprofessional collaboration among health care workers, other professionals and organizations, and clients is essential for establishing effective services and programs
-Is an even greater necessity when working with population groups, especially those from vulnerable or at-risk segments
-Collaboration improves client outcomes, staff communication, and the quality of care
-Collaboration involves working with members of other professions on community advisory boards and health planning committees to develop needs assessment surveys and to contribute toward policy development efforts
-Another component includes development of policies to promote and protect the health of patients
What are the differences between acute care nursing and community health nursing?
-Acute care nursing
1. Care of solitary patients
2. Primarily illness end of the health continuum
-Community health nursing
1. Care encompasses a much wider vista
2. Primary charge to prevent health problems
3. Promote higher levels of health
What is health as it relates to the community?
-A community, as a collection of people, may be described in terms of degrees of wellness or illness
-The health of an individual, family, group, or community moves back and forth along this continuum throughout the lifespan
-Healthy people make healthy communities and a healthy society
What are the differences between objective and subjective dimensions of health?
-Objective dimensions
1. How well they can function in their environment
2. A healthy individual or community carries out necessary activities and achieves enriching goals
3. Unhealthy people not only feel unwell, but they are limited, to some degree, in their ability to carry out daily activities
-Subjective dimensions
1. Involves how people feel
2. A healthy person is one who feels well and who experiences the sensation of a vital, positive state
3. Healthy people are full of life and vigor, capable of physical and mental productivity
4. They feel minimal discomfort and displeasure with the world around them
5. People experience varying degrees of vitality and well-being, and the state of feeling well fluctuates
What is continuity of service and its concept?
-The activity of case management often follows discharge planning as a part of continuity of care
-When applied to individual clients, it means overseeing their transition from the hospital back into the community and monitoring them to ensure that all of their service needs are met
-It involves overseeing and ensuring that group or population health-related needs are met, particularly for those who are at high risk of illness or injury
What are the roles of the community health nurse?
-Clinician
-Educator
-Advocate
-Manager
-Collaborator
-Leader
-Researcher
What is the community at large?
-Is not confined to a specific philosophy, location, or building
-When working with groups, populations, or the total community, the nurse may practice in many different places
-Community at large becomes the setting for practice for a nurse who serves on health care planning committees, lobbies for health legislation at the state capital, runs for a school board position, or assists with flood relief in another state or another country
What are examples of the community at large?
-A C/PHN, as clinician and health educator, may work with a parenting group in a church or town hall
-Another nurse, as client advocate, leader, and researcher, may study the health needs of a neighborhood’s older adult population by collecting data throughout the area and meeting with university researchers or resource professionals in many places
-Also, a nurse may work with community-based organizations such as an LGBTQ advocacy organization or a support group for parents experiencing the violent death of a child
What is a residential institution?
-Any facility where clients reside can be a setting in which community/public health nursing is practiced
-Provide unique settings for the C/PHN to practice health promotion
1. Patients are more accessible, their needs can be readily assessed, and their interests can be stimulated
2. These settings offer the opportunity to generate an environment of caring and optimal quality health care provided by community/public health nursing services
What are examples of a residential institution?
-Halfway houses, in which clients live temporarily while recovering from drug addiction, and inpatient hospice programs, in which terminally ill clients live
-Some residential settings, such as hospitals, exist solely to provide health care; others provide a variety of services and support
-A continuing care center providing health care that may use community/public health nursing services
-Sheltered workshops and group homes for children or adults with mental illness or developmental disability that serve clients who share specific needs
-Settings where residents are gathered for purposes other than receiving care, where health care is offered as an adjunct to the primary goals of the institution (camping programs for healthy children and adults offered by religious organizations and other community agencies, such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and YMCA)
-Other camp nurses work with children and adults who have chronic or terminal illnesses, through disease-related community agencies such as the American Lung Association, American Diabetes Association, and American Cancer Society
-Correctional institution
What is an ambulatory service?
A variety of venues in which patients require day or evening services that do not include overnight stays
What are examples of an ambulatory service?
-A local public health department
-A clinic offering comprehensive services in an outpatient department of a hospital or medical center
-A comprehensive community or neighborhood health center
-A specialized clinic, such as a family planning clinic or a well-child clinic, in a community location convenient for clients, such as in a church basement or a pharmacy
-A day care center, such as for those with physical disabilities or behavioral health issues
-A nurse-managed health center, often provided as a community service component of a school of nursing, with the mission of enhancing student clinical experiences while meeting identified community needs in the areas of primary health care and health promotion
-A medical practice office, such as associated with a health maintenance organization and involving screening, referrals, case management services, counseling, health education, and group work
-An independent nursing practice in a community nursing center that also may include home visits
-A setting associated with a selected client group, such as a migrant camp, tribal land, correctional facility, children’s day care center, faith community, coal-mining community, or remote frontier area
What is a faith community?
-The practice focal point remains the faith community and the religious belief system provided by the philosophical framework
-This nursing specialty may take different names, such as church-based health promotion, parish nursing, or faith community nursing practice
-Involves a large-scale effort by the church community to improve the health of its members through education, screening, referral, treatment, and group support
What are examples of a faith community?
Any religious or spiritual communities/organizations
