Community Health Nursing and Research
Community Health
Community health is influenced by environmental, biomedical, organizational, and behavioral factors and encompasses a broad definition of health.
For example, good jobs, education, safe neighborhoods, access to health and social services, and recreation and leisure activities all promote community health.
Community health is a process of health promotion and disease prevention in which community leaders identify community problems and assets, create consensus on goals, take action, and reach goals.
Key aspects of this process are community development and multisectoral interventions, including health policy and community participation.
Ongoing community-wide efforts
assess and monitor progress in achieving explicitly stated community goals, for
example, those adapted from Healthy People 2010 (US Department of Health and
Human Services [USDHHS], 2000).
Collaboration With Other Health Disciplines
Because the health of people is affected by broad contextual factors, nurses, particularly community health nurses, must collaborate with other disciplines in developing a knowledge base for community health.
Useful
theories and models that can be applied to the study of community health
include cultural change theories, social change theories, critical theories,
community development, diffusion of innovation, ecological models, community
participation, community power, and community decision making.
Community Health Nursing Research And Its Classification
Community health research can be classified in different ways. For example, categorical programs include large-scale interdisciplinary studies such as the Minnesota Heart Health Program, the Pawtucket Heart Health Program, and the Stanford Five-City Project.
Noncategorical programs include Healthy Cities and action research. Epidemiological research includes community needs, assets assessments, and risk factors for disease. Finally, there are evaluations of community health interventions.
Increasingly, nurses are
conducting community health research and involving other disciplines and the
community in the process.
Opportunity In Community Research
Opportunities for nursing research in community health are enormous. The growth of managed care is placing increased demands on state and local public health systems to ensure the continuation of vital programs.
Research in managed care and its impact on community health is needed to ensure accountability of essential services. The extent to which underserved populations receive care within cost containment strategies should be studied.
The development of community coalitions for health throughout the country requires further study.
Most major health programs--for example, Assessment
Protocol for Excellence in Public Health (APEX/PH), Planned Approach to
Community Health (PATCH), Healthy Cities and Communities, and HIV/AIDS
Community Planning-involve the development of community coalitions as part of
the community health process.
Nursing interventions, such as nurse managed clinics or community nursing centers, need further research. What are theoretical factors that sustain successful nurse managed services at the local level?
To what extent are these services being integrated into the networks of provider services? Dissemination of research findings is also important. For example, what are the characteristics of successful nurse-managed services that can be applied elsewhere and in what types of communities?
Challenges to Community Research
Likewise, the challenges are enormous. Nurses can take the lead in interdisciplinary research collaboration.
The skills for community health research require the expertise of many disciplines in addition to nursing, including epidemiology, health economics, medicine, dentistry, health policy, statistics, and urban planning. T
he challenge is to share the expertise of each
discipline as well as share the credit and rewards of collaboration. Although
the time is ripe for funding such research efforts, such funding is highly
competitive in the current health care arena.
The concept of community health incorporates a broad definition of health, one that recognizes the multiple community factors that support and impinge on health.
Scientific inquiry that includes both qualitative and quantitative research approaches is needed to further build the body of knowledge relevant to the theory and practice of community health.
Give your opinion if have any.