a healthy community

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.

Since 1980, the United States has taken on 10-year plans that outline certain key national health objectives set to be accomplished during a 10-year timeframe (Shi & Singh, 2015). These initiatives are founded on medical care with prevention services, health promotion, education, community health care, and increased access to integrated services. The initiative, Healthy People 2010: Healthy People in Healthy Communities, launched in 2000. The initiative emphasizes the role of community partners such as

community is through the unique cultural foods and festivals. If one is to improve the health

San Diego is a nice place to live because of the great weather year round, an abundance of job opportunities, access to healthcare, and

In the United States we are very fortunate. For the most part we do not live in fear of disease outbreaks from day to day. Our government along with the Centers for Disease Control and Public Health Departments have managed to have adults and children vaccinated and set up recommendations regarding those vaccinations. Despite all that is done our country allows freedoms. One of these freedoms is to not vaccinate your child from communicable diseases due to personal beliefs. With the worlds populations becoming more mobile, that sets your child up for dangerous encounters; because some countries are not as strict on laws regarding vaccinations and some

The community I decided to research and compose this paper is one from which I live, Kent County Michigan. I gathered data from several different resources such as the Kent County Health Department and Michigan Department of Community Health in order to create a community assessment. The data I collected can be broken down into four different assessment pieces.

There are some challenges, as well, in implementing health promotion programs that use the social ecological framework. One main challenge is that programs are expensive and complex to implement in certain community settings. Also, there needs to be close coordination and collaboration between individuals and groups. In the article by Wagemakers et al., the authors developed a framework that links the domains of social environment and health, with key health predicting mediators, and operational variables of participation and collaboration (6). They based this framework on experience in case studies, audits of community health programs in the Netherlands, and ideas found in the literature. The authors offer four key guidelines on how to apply the framework that can help increase community participation and collaboration. These guidelines are: use the variables as a menu, set specific aims for social change processes, use an action research approach and triangulate data. This framework can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of community health promotion designs and address the challenges faced in implementing new programs.

What is your idea of a healthy community? Provide specific examples. What do healthy communities have in common? How would you provide care for a community if your idea of a healthy community does not match your community's definition of a healthy community?

Community health is the process or characteristics that allow a community’s population and economy to survive. Community health is defined as the meeting of collective needs through identification of problems and

1. Reflect on how your perspective of the community’s health and the national, state, and local efforts toward a healthier population

I currently reside in Denver County, Colorado. I have chosen to assess and analyze this community for this assignment. Denver, Colorado is located east of the Eastern Foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver County is centrally located within the city of Denver, Colorado and includes the Denver International Airport located north-east of the city. The elevation of this county is 5,277 feet and therefore is nicknamed the “Mile-High City”. Denver County contains 154.9 square miles of land with a large amount of parks and rivers, of which 1.4 miles is water. (City and County of Denver, 2011).

Every Community faces a variety of community health problems. The health of a community relies on four factors: physical, social and culture, community organization and individual behaviors. I believe my hometown struggles most with individual behavior, specifically poor and unhealthy lifestyle decisions. How individual community members behave reflects back onto the community as a whole. Unhealthy lifestyle decisions can have a lifetime affect on the individual as well as the community.

The social determinants of health topic area within healthy people 2020 are designed to identify ways to create social and physical environments that promote good health for all. Healthy attitudes start from homes, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. People practice good behavior by eating well, exercising, getting scheduled immunizations to prevent infectious diseases, drinking clean water, breathing air free of pollution, attending checkups with medical doctors and going for disease screening (Healthy People, 2014). The quality of our schooling, the safety of workplaces, our social interactions and relationships, explain in part why Americans are healthier than others. The determinants of health fall under several categories

Strengthening community action is instrumental in establishing positive health outcomes in young people. In strengthening community action, various support networks are put into place to not only prevent

Throughout my life, I have been privileged to know a strong sense of community. My understanding of community has been carved out and shaped by each community that I have been a part of and the subsequent life experiences that I have had by being a part of these communities. To me, community means a sense of belonging with people who have some capacity of like-mindedness. When you belong to a community, you feel like a piece of a larger puzzle that comes together to create a whole. Each community you belong to both influences you, and is influenced by you. Moreover, your belonging to a community generates a sense of unity and shares a common goal, value, or outlook.