2 postsRe: Topic 2 DQ 1

Social determinants of health are factors affecting peoples’ health, functioning and well-being, such as environmental conditions, social, and economic variables. Socioeconomic environmental factors contributing to infectious disease occurrence include crowding, unsanitary, unavailability of uncontaminated foods and water. These conditions provide an environment required for continuous chain of infection; the process required for transmission of disease. There are 6 components in the chain, or a cycle, of infection: organisms, reservoir, portal of exit, transmission, portal of entry, and a suspectable host (Green, 2018). To stop spreading of a communicable disease, the process has to interrupted or the chain of infection has to be broken at any point. Nurses, working in communities can decrease of the infectious diseases spreading. Promoting vaccination to lowering susceptible hosts number; and educating on sign and symptoms for early self-isolation to protect one’s family members from getting sick, breaking the transmission link. Educating on thorough hand hygiene and reducing face touching may protect one from getting sick eliminate portal of entry link. Proper respiratory hygiene, such as using disposable tissues and covering the mouth when sneezing, may stop the transmission on the stage of the pathogen leaving the reservoir via portal of exit (CDC.gov).

Noncommunicable chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, have grown in endemic and epidemic proportions, are developing from a combination of determinants including environmental, physiological, and behavioral factors, additionally to genetic disposition (Green, 2018). Lack of knowledge and motivation, unavailability of healthcare services and financial resources contribute to developing of such diseases.q

 

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1 postsRe: Topic 1 DQ 2

The geopolitical area contains community boundaries, environmental elements, plant life, weather, public transport, wildlife, facilities and homes. The community may be enveloped by mountains or wilderness. Natural disasters and injuries may arise and fluctuate with geographic areas. A geographic information system can be useful for healthcare specialists when identifying geographic or population boundaries. According to Green (2018), Geographic Information System (GIS) “helps to determine where there are disparities, health behaviors, or health deficits in an environment related to the geography of the area.” A phenomenological place is a mental place rather than a geographical place. This place concentrates on history, culture, economics, education, spiritual beliefs, values and common characteristics (GCU, 2018). These ideas establish a perspective in which the participants of the community feel as though they fit in. The community elements are the bases when identifying the community assessment.

According to Green (2018), “Public health nursing focuses on groups, populations, or the health of an entire geographical sector.” Therefore, whole public health utilizes the knowledge to push interventions to enhance stated health disparities. Public health demands are constantly changing and are what make the advancement of programs to enhance public health.

The community assessment involves studying the protection and wellbeing of a community to comprehend the connections among the people, environment, and resources. The nurse uses various methods of assessment of the environment and population before starting programs. The nurse prepares nursing diagnoses for the community created on the results and challenges decided from the community assessment. Public health nursing is motivated by the demands of the population for the prevention of disease and the development of the communities’ health.

The community health nurse must perform a series of actions to identify subjective and objective data and evaluate the information. After understanding the information, the nurse must recognize the demands and create a plan, an intervention and evaluate the data collected.

 

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2 postsRe: Topic 1 DQ 2

     There are three elements the public health nurse (PHN) must consider when performing a community assessment.These elements include the population, location and social system (Green, 2018).When considering the focus of the assessment in the nursing process the PHN sets borders in order to assess the members within the community and the environment, determining variables and examining groups of people in different data sets.Outlining and identifying features of the population being assessed is the initial step the PHN completes when performing a focused assessment on a population (Green, 2018).Characteristics of the population’s demographic composition are the key elements for evaluating the needs within the defined group.

     PHN need to consider how the environment impacts the health for the population being assessed.The geopolitical place should be factored into a population assessment.The geopolitical place comprises the boundaries of the community, availability of public or private transportation, the characteristics of the geographic area, the climate, housing and native plants and animals (Green, 2018).How each of these elements potentially affects health can all be considered in the assessment.Geopolitical borders include ZIP codes, neighborhoods and school and health districts while man-made borders include streets, bridges and structures.These borders are utilized in epidemiologic studies to establish the demographics and health services/resources.Geographical informational systems are useful to establish patterns of health, inequalities in health within a setting that may be a result of the geographical influences (Green, 2018).By considering the geopolitical influences on a population, the PHN can plan interventions to be implemented.

     In contrast to the geographical and geopolitical location, a phenomenological place is the considers the history, cultures, spiritual beliefs, values and economics of a population (Green, 2018).The phenomenological characteristics of a population are what creates the sense of belonging for members in the community.Individuals may be part of different phenomenological places based on their individual religious, political and cultural beliefs.The PHN should consider the relationships, similar beliefs and goals when performing the assessment in order to establish the health status and needs of the community.

     Following the assessment, the nurse then can determine the needs and risks within the population, set goals, plan interventions to be implemented and then evaluate the outcome.For example, an elementary school nurses assesses the students and finds a large amount to be overweight.After a comprehensive assessment, the nursing diagnosis impaired nutrition: more than bodily requirements is selected.The nurse can than set the realistic goal with the students that they will be able to select 3 healthy foods when presented with different options.Interventions would include education about healthy diet and exercise and the importance of health promotion and healthy lifestyle to prevent disease, taught at the students knowledge level.After the educational sessions are implemented, the nurse can then evaluate and reassess the need for further interventions.

 

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4 postsRe: Topic 2 DQ 1

There are many factors that influence the heath of an individual or the population. In a broad term one of this factor is termed Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). SDOH are the complex circumstances where people are born, live, grow, play learn, worship, work and age (heathy people. Gov, 2018a; World Health Organization, n.d.). In order words, these are broad range of personal, social, economic and environmental factors. The determinants are about individual place in society, this includes income level, educational level and type of employment. Over the years group of people have experienced racism, discrimination and historical events such as the black people. These experiences have detrimental effects on the health care needs of these group of people. SDOH is the main factor responsible for today’s major health problems in society including depression, hearth disease, diabetes and obesity (What are the Social Determinants of Health? 2018).

There are complex interactions between the SDOH. For example, low income will have direct impact on the individual or community accessibility to proper health care, lack of good food and thus increasing the burden on the individual or family. This burden is often translated into poor coping mechanism in the form of drug use and sometimes comfort eating of unhealthy food. Poor health can reduce the individual opportunities to have meaningful employment which in turn impact on the individual’s income. These factors interplay with each other and have a positive or negative effect on the overall health of the individual or population.

A communicable disease chain is the process by which pathogen of infectious agent is transmitted to another organism (Green, 2018). This model of communicable disease chain is presented by six links, infectious agent, susceptible host, reservoir, portal of entry, mode of transmission and portal of exist (Break the Chain of Infection, n.d.). All these elements most be presence for the spread of communicable disease in a population. To stop the spread of disease is by breaking the chain at any link.

Nurses are in better position in breaking the chain of infection because they are involved at all levels of prevention (Institute for Work and Health, 2015) The nurse can use preventive measures or health education that are aimed at breaking the chain and reducing the risks of infections in other people. These measures include adhering to proper hygiene measures (WHO, 2018). For example, in the case of contact precautions, nurses should always use the appropriate personal protective equipment disposed of immediately after attending the patient to protect the nurse and other patients from getting infection.

 

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4 postsRe: Topic 3 DQ 1

A vulnerable population is a group of people who need special considerations in regard to their health and overall welfare (Falkner, 2018).Vulnerable populations are individuals who are not able to advocate for themselves due to physical, cognitive or mental disability, emotionally unstable people, children and incarcerated individuals.These populations usually have several social determinants of health(SDOH) that contribute to their vulnerability.These SDOH can include poverty, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and no insurance or the underinsured.

 In the United States there are many vulnerable populations.One group that gets a significant amount of media coverage is the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/questioning (LGBTQ) population.The inequality and hardship this group often encounters within the medical community and the higher instance of medical conditions such as Hepatitis B, HIV and AIDS is what makes this population considered vulnerable (Falkner, 2018).In the US, it is estimated that 10 million adults identify as LGBTQ (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2018).Many individuals within the population have reported prejudice from medical providers, leading to reluctance to seek care or delay in treatment due to the bias experienced.The stigma in society, discrimination and failure to recognize the unique civil and human rights deters individual self-determination and access to care which causes negative health outcomes and overall increase in morbidity and mortality (ANA, 2018).All nurses, not just CHN need to understand their own preconceptions and bias when caring for this vulnerable population.Ethically, nurses have a responsibility to provide safe, competent care to all individuals regardless of age, sex, sexual preference, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.

 

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