Understanding Public Health and Community Health
Understanding the medical needs of a national territory and intervening to promote population health is what public health is all about (Walley & Wright, 2010). As a result, the health problem impacts everyone in the country, and suitable measures must be implemented to avoid, alleviate, or decrease the impact of the problem.
Community health, on the other hand, refers to the state of the public, the acts of health officials, and the conditions that promote, protect, and preserve society's well-being (Mckenzie & Pinger, 2015). Furthermore, the needs are limited to a small population, such as a cholera outbreak in a town. As a result, the interventions are to contain the problem within the city and the immediate outskirts. Also, through developing measures in collaboration with authorities, the health offices can address sources of the problem as a way to prevent an occurrence in the future of the same nature. For example, they can engage in activities such as public awareness of the significance of proper waste disposal and clean water. Public health focuses on improving the health of the whole population while community health deals with the medical needs of the specific individuals in a small region.
Levels of Prevention
There are three different levels which include primary, secondary and tertiary stages. The primary prevention involves preventing a condition before it arises through health promotion activities, environmental protection, and specific protection against diseases (Tulchinsky & Varavikova, 2014). Examples of the primary level include vaccinating children against communicable disease and encouraging good lifestyles in areas such as personal nutrition. Therefore, the primary level plays an essential role in enhancing good health in the society to avoid health issues.
Secondary prevention is the early observation and treatment of unfavorable health conditions. Health screening is the pillar of secondary prevention (Tulchinsky & Varavikova, 2014). Some examples of the secondary level include pregnancy testing, blood pressure, fecal occult blood testing, cholesterol monitoring, and breast examinations. Such involvement does not stop the health issue but is planned for early observation and prompt treatment to prevent complications. The stage is important since early interventions help solve diseases and contain health risks before they aggravate in seriousness.
Tertiary prevention is a plan to lower the development of a disease or disability. The level helps to restore people to their maximum potential (Tulchinsky & Varavikova, 2014). Examples of this level are reducing and managing the effect of chronic illness and working with women who have been affected by the long-term consequences of violence. At this level, public health offices contribute to living a healthy life and guiding patients or the community against lifestyles that endanger their lives or provide medical supplies to improve the quality of life.
Role and Responsibility of Nurses
The nurses work to improve health and stop infections in a defined group of people with the intention of increasing community health. For instance, nurses can meet with a group of young mothers to provide information on immunizations, prenatal, and postnatal care (Clark, 2008). Also, they can respond to emergencies in a community by providing primary care before receiving further treatment in specialized cases (Clark, 2008). In collaboration with the health officers, nurses develop measures and create awareness of particular epidemics, their health consequences, and how to prevent them, such as HIV (Clark, 2008). For example, after a disease breakout, the public health nurse will evaluate the need and come up with the program for an immunization clinic.
Subsequently, implementation in community health nurse is based on individual, families and groups' needs. For example, home-based care for the chronically ill patients aids both the family and the sick individual in understanding the measure of improving the quality of their life and strategies of self-treatment (Walley & Wright, 2010). Nevertheless, nurses assess whether health needs are met and evaluate the health status of the community regarding achieving planned objectives.
Current Issues Faced by Community and Public Nurses
One of the significant problems that the community and public health nurses face is stress as a result of overworking and exposure to horrifying scenarios every day. The shortage of staff and nurse-patient ratio imbalance affects the nurse's mind and body (Nigenda et al., 2010). Also, work pressure and poor management can make nurses have emotional exhaustion. Therefore, stress affects the ability of nurses to exercise their duties efficiently leading to poor control of patient's health, which in turn increases the number of medical errors that can lead to death (Nigenda et al., 2010). Another challenge the nursing is facing is that they do not have the prestige of another profession across America. As a result, the demand for training in nursing is low compared to other fields such as medicine (Nigenda et al., 2010). The challenge leads to a lack of skilled personnel and surplus of unskilled nurses.
In addition to issues facing nurses is the migration of nurses from countries. The movement of nurses to other professions or areas affects the profile of human health resources at the global level. Most countries in Latin America experience this problem with some changing their occupation (Booven, 2017). Migration of nurses leads to the shortage of skilled personnel and it will negatively affect health institutions. For instance, when nurses migrate from America there will be few nurses to care for the elderly and retired populations. Also, as a result of the shortage of home care providers, some people are being forced to depend on hospitals which are expensive hence can avoid seeking medical help (Booven, 2017). As an example, there are many families in Pennsylvania waiting to take disabled children to home care as a way to cut hospital fees for the inpatients but cannot since there is the shortage of home health care nurses (Booven, 2017).
References
Booven, V., (2017). Pennsylvania’s Home Health Care Provider Shortage Affecting Families - HomeCareDaily.com. Retrieved from https://www.homecaredaily.com/2017/10/26/
pennsylvanias-home-health-care-provider-shortage-affecting-families/
Clark, M. J. (2008). Community Assessment Reference Guide for Community Health Nursing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
McKenzie, J. F., & Pinger, R. R. (2015). An Introduction to Community and Public Health.
Nigenda, G., Magaña-Valladares, L., Cooper, K., & Ruiz-Larios, J. A. (2010). Recent Developments in Public Health Nursing in the Americas. International journal of environmental research and public health, 7(3), 729-750.
Tulchinsky, T., & Varavikova, E. (2014). The new public health (3rd ed., pp. 53-57). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Walley, J., & Wright, J. (2010). Public health: An Action Guide to Improving Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
