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• WHO defines health as the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of a disease or infirmity
• Community is a group of people who share something in common
• Community is a group of people, regardless of the diversity of their backgrounds, who have been able to accept and transcend their differences
• Enabling effective communication and working together towards common goals identified for their common good
• 5 Core Elements of a Community:

  • Locus or sense of place: something which can be located or described, sense of place, locale, or geographic boundaries
  • Sharing: shared perspectives and common interests, sharing of values, ideologies, activities, etc.
  • Joint action: source of community cohesion and identity (e.g., conversing, volunteering together)
  • Interpersonal relationships: includes families, siblings, cousins, roommates, support groups, etc., describes the stratification among the members, "a community within a community"
  • Social ties
  • Diversity
• Community development is an important strategy in nation-building
• It is a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems
• Geared towards changing institutions and structures that will nurture equitable progress in all social aspects
• Requires participation and active contribution of members in varying levels of effort and accountability
• System is an organized collection of units interacting in various forms to accomplish specific functions or goals
• Systems can be simple, complex, open (interacts with other systems), or closed
• The Community can be dissected into other forms of systems:

  • Political system
  • Health system
  • Social class system based on ethnicity, religious affiliation, or economic class
  • Each has its own subsystems
• A community is composed of units:

  • Families
  • Households
  • Villages
  • Neighborhoods
  • Districts
• Classifications of a Community:

  • Rural: usually small, occupations include farming, fishing, and food gathering
  • Suburban: low-density areas separating residential and commercial areas, adjacent to or surrounding the city
  • Urban: high density, socially heterogeneous population, complex structure, non-agricultural occupation
• Public Health is a subset of Community Health
• Defined by Charles Edward Amory Winslow as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, promoting physical health and efficiency through various means
• Includes sanitation of the environment, control of community infections, education on proper hygiene principles, and organization of medical and nursing services for early diagnosis and preventive treatment
• Public Health deals with:

  • Surveillance of emerging diseases
  • Identification of diseases among community members
  • Investigating factors contributing to disease existence
  • Educating the community on disease prevention methods
  • Creating strategies for sustained well-being
  • Providing health services for those with diseases or recovering from complications
  • Institutionalizing lessons learned for disease prevention
  • Monitoring community health status and providing means for sustaining health and well-being
• Community Health is the study and improvement of health characteristics of a community
• Deals with processes enabling communities to maintain and sustain health and well-being
• A subset of Public Health
• Characteristics of Public Health:

  • Focuses on preventive aspects of health rather than curative aspects
  • Deals with population-level health issues rather than individual health problems
• 3 Core Functions of Public Health:

  • Assessment: monitor health status, diagnose and investigate health problems, inform and empower people about health issues
  • Policy Development: mobilize community partnerships, develop policies and plans supporting individual and community health efforts
  • Assurance: enforce laws and regulations for health protection, link people to needed health services, evaluate effectiveness and quality of health services
• 5 Steps of Public Health Approach in Addressing Health Problems in Community:

  • Define the health problem
  • Identify associated risk factors
  • Develop and test community-level interventions
  • Implement interventions to improve population health
  • Monitor intervention effectiveness
• Levels of Prevention:

  • Primary Prevention: prevents illness or injury by avoiding exposure to risk factors
  • Secondary Prevention: minimizes severity of illness or damage after an event has occurred
  • Tertiary Prevention: minimizes disability through medical care and rehabilitation services
• Health refers to the physical and psychological capacity to establish and maintain balance
• Successful defense of the host against forces that disturb body equilibrium
• Aspects of Health:

  • Physical Health: condition enabling a person to maintain a strong and healthy body
  • Mental Health: how a person feels, thinks, controls emotions, and adjusts to the environment
  • Social Health: how a person feels, thinks, and acts towards others
• Levels of Health Care:

  • Primary Care: first point of contact for all patients, often deals with preventive care and interventions
  • Secondary Care: provided by specialists after referral from primary care, focuses on more complex cases
  • Tertiary Care: highly specialized care for complex medical cases
• Referral Process:

  • Transfer of a patient from one level or point of care to another