Nursing Experience Working With Communities And Populations

Wide reaching, nurses significantly outnumbered physicians as providers of health care often having utmost vast reach remoteness to underserved communities. Having personally lived in one of the underserved communities in my hometown Western Africa before moving to the United States of America and my life calling to be a nurse from a young age with the deep desire to make a difference. I plan to contribute and continue to contribute immensely to the underserved communities by delivering quality health care to remote regions around the world. I do volunteer service at several clinics in the Atlanta area with many well-known Emory physicians that care for homeless and underserved populations, these volunteer experiences provide me with opportunities and fulfillment to develop added headship skill and experience to meet my daily patients, needs.

Communities are sometimes largely unaware that social factors rather than medical ones, such as income, and employment status, shape our health. Our health is also determined by the health and social services we receive, and our ability to attain high education levels, food and safe housing, among other factors.

Health as a whole is determined by the quality of life, as well as an individuals’ ability to create personal positive social and physical environments. These environments include homes, schools, workplaces and the community as a whole. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO, 2003), the social determinants of health are conditions in which people live, work, and grow, where these factors are influenced by money, power and available resources. There are five main aspects of social determinants: economic stability, social/community health, general health, education, and the surrounding built environment, where each determinant refers to multiple key issues. These determinants commonly affect health, the functioning of people, their quality of life, as well as social, economic and physical risks. Examples of social determinants include:

The determinants of health are economic and social conditions that affect people’s health status. These influence the living and working conditions that impacts people’s everyday living condition. Factors such as the place and the environment we live in, genetics, educational level or work status and income, as well as friends and family are some of the aspects that affects our health condition. On the other hand, the people that have an access to good health care and have financial stability are less susceptible and are often less affected. (NANB, 2009)

The geographic-level aspects involve a range of dimensions, ranging from physical characteristics of the area – such as location and climate (Bloom and Sachs 1998, APUD Wagstaff, 2001), to the infrastructure offered (Macintyre et. al., 2002) such as health services (quantity and quality), sanitation, water supply, roads, and so forth. One interesting hypothesis is that the presence of favorable aspects, like low crime rates, street cleanness and lightening, recreation places, among other “amenities” in the region under analysis mitigate the effects of unfavorable individual circumstances over health; whereas the adverse ones, such as pollution, lack of sanitation or low accessibility to urban facilities, amplify the already perverse influence of deprived individual characteristics on health status (Macintyre et. al., 2002; Kennedy et al., 1998). In California, for instance, Haan, Kaplan and Camacho (1987) found that people from poor areas experienced higher mortality rates (after controlling proper age, race and sex) than the population from non-poverty areas. Such risk of death persisted even after socioeconomic and behavioral adjustments. Similar findings have been reported by Humphries and Carr-Hill (1991); Jones and Duncan (1995) and Duncan et.al. (1993), supporting the hypothesis of the social environment´s influence over health, independently of the individual-level.

I did my study for this assignment in Stokes County, North Carolina which is where I recently moved to from Iowa. Stokes County is made up of several small towns but King, which is where I live, is the largest town. Stokes County is in the middle northern part of the state near the Virginia border, a mountain chain, and a lot of wilderness. Some of the towns are incorporated and some are not and a few only claim to be villages. Using the Population Economic Status Assessment, I looked at the State & County Quick Facts last revised: Feb-2015 and found that the county population is at about 46,588. The Caucasian population makes up 93.8% of the population, African American 4.4%, Hispanic 2.7%, and the remainder is 1.1%. The

“Failure to acknowledge, and more importantly, to understand the role of Social determinants of Health (SDH) in health and access to health and social services will hamper any effort to improve the health of the population.” (Ompad, Galea, Caiaffa, & Vlahov, 2007). Unemployment, unsafe work environments, globalization and the inability to access health systems are some social determinants of health. Social factors would be considered place of residence, race and ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status are also part of social determinants of health. According to “Social Determinants of the Health of Urban Populations: Methodologic Considerations’ Place of residence and an individual’s status within the place are important determinants of health in urban settings. It is important to recognize that the place of residence is

Statistical data and reports show social behavior, economic status, and social structure are important determinants of

The candidate provides an appropriate description, with substantial detail, of the community where the fieldwork was performed by identifying each of the 5 given items. geographical area (e.g., county, city, town)• area size• population size• demographics • physical and social environment

2. Explain how you and other nurses might work with the community and the population of interest to improve the health concern.

A major influence on health in a community is the availability of services and opportunities within the neighborhood. Public health can be further influenced by the social environments. Accessibility to health care along with education and employment opportunities are fundamental factors to be considered (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2015). These elements create both advantages and disadvantages for those living within the neighborhood. If we want to improve public health outcomes, we must consider and evaluate these along with many other contributing factors.

Through volunteering as one of the only a professional nurse I can apply empowerment in my community, through community participation. The application of knowledge obtained through participation in this collaborative project (student health promotion and disease prevention project SHPDPP), and the establishing at least a level 1 partnership: As a higher degree nursing student I am learning an approach to exceeded typical outcomes, advocacy in areas of social justice and improve compassionate connections with this vulnerable population, individuals at a homeless shelter (in particularly Veterans/aggregate), forging new territory in my

The community chosen for this fieldwork practicum is Pasadena, California. Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California. As of 2015, the estimated population of Pasadena was 140,881, making it the 183rd largest city in the United States (City Data, 2015). Pasadena is the ninth-largest city in Los Angeles County.

My interest in providing culturally competent care inspired me to become a nurse practitioner, but most of all the inspirations came from the wonderful diverse patients I have had the privilege to care for throughout my nursing career. My primary objective is to care for underserved population communities. In my career, I have seen lives been cut short that would have been saved if only they had made it to the hospital in time. But because of reasons including lack of health care access, knowledge how to access care, cultural and religious beliefs, language barrier, and fear of being judged by medical professionals led them not seek medical attention.

An array of factors like personal, social, economic, and environment issues influence and determines the health of individual and population, acting in various combination (Knickman & Kovner, 2015). These determinants of health, known as population health determinants generally include genetics, access to health care, individual behavior, social determinant, physical environment (Knickman & Kovner, 2015).