Community health in the global and Asia-Pacific context
Ben Y.F. Fong, Martin C.S. Wong in The Routledge Handbook of Public Health and the Community, 2021
Humans do not live in a biological vacuum but coexist in an interdependence of biodiversity. Health is defined in the perspective of community health as ‘a structural, functional and emotional state that is compatible with effective life as an individual and as a member of society’, and ‘a dynamic state or condition of human organism that is multidimensional (i.e. physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual and occupational) in nature, a resource for living, and results from a person’s interactions with and adaptations to his or her environment’ (McCartney et al., 2019; McKenzie et al., 2011). In literal meaning, a ‘community’ simply refers to a group of different people that live within specific geographical boundaries, sharing particular characteristics in common such as norms, values, customs and identity. While the word ‘health’ gives an impression of a state of being free from physical and mental illnesses, people in general, apart from seeing ‘community health’ with a philosophical view, would combine it with how health is being achieved in the community.
The Role of Social Work in Improving Quality of Life in the Community
Gail K. Auslander in International Perspectives on Social Work in Health Care: Past, Present and Future, 2014
Social work will provide services in five domains as we transition into the future. Perhaps the title of an American movie is apt in describing our perspective—namely back to the future. The five domains are: Establishing programs to enhance community health.Identification and intervention with vulnerable populations—especially with primary prevention.Utilization of social epidemiological and social science techniques to improve screening, assessment and evaluation of practice.Linking community agencies to health care in order to achieve comprehensive social services.Provision of cross-functional program management.
Falling Through the Safety Net
Kant Patel, Mark Rushefsky in Healthcare Politics and Policy in America, 2019
Related to community health centers are community health workers. The Community Health Workers section of the American Public Health Association defines a community health worker as follows:A community health worker is a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served. This trusting relationship enables the worker to serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery.A community health worker also builds individual and community capacity by increasing health knowledge and self-sufficiency through a range of activities such as outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support and advocacy.(Community Health Workers n.d.)
Outcomes in CME/CPD - Special Collection: How to make the “pyramid” a perpetuum mobile
Published in Journal of European CME, 2020
Reinhard Griebenow, Peter Mills, Jörg Stein, Henrik Herrmann, Malte Kelm, Craig Campbell, Robert Schäfer
Community health is the sum of the various forces working for and against community health. In targeting community health CME must therefore take responsibility for discussing all the pros and cons involved in improving community health. Current definitions of how to conduct accredited CME theoretically cover aspects of community health [83]. However, most CME currently does not deliberately address community health, since faculty, programme schedules, content, and outcomes, would have to be different in CME aimed at keep-on-competence. This would be accessible to external assessment (as part of the accreditation process), and thus even easier to assess than changes in language, management of data volume, or sources of information in CME [75,84]. Worldwide, accrediting bodies are currently in the process of defining harmonised criteria for accreditation of CME [83]. How to better implement community health-orientated CME might become part of this project.
Guiding Principles of Community Engagement and Global Health Research: Solidarity and Subsidiarity
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
Given solidarity in this sense, CE stands as an operationalized version of the principle. Consider first the explicit definitions of CE and of community given in the CDC reference document, Principles of Community Engagement (CDCP 2011). According to the first edition of this document (1997), CE is the “process of working collaboratively with groups of people who are affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations with respect to issues affecting their well-being” (CDCP 2011, xv). “Community” is understood in two ways, as the collaborative body of those who are affected by the health issues to be studied and as a collaborative group of those who decided to vest in the health concerns of others, including but not limited to those in geographic proximity, academics, public health professionals, and policy makers (CDCP 2011, xvi). These descriptions demonstrate CE as reflective of solidarity’s commitment to the common good and its entailment of both self-determination and communal thinking. They serve also as reminders that each of us is a member of multiple and overlapping communities.
The power of interdependence: Linking health systems, communities, and health professions educational programs to better meet the needs of patients and populations
Published in Medical Teacher, 2021
Richard N. Van Eck, Heidi L. Gullett, Sara M. Lamb, Helene J. Krouse, Lauren W. Mazzurco, Onelia G. Lage, Joy H. Lewis, Kimberly D. Lomis
The implications of such systemic framing of medical education offers a tantalizing shift. Current reductionist approaches train individuals within disciplinary silos and assume that having each expert impart their narrow expertise somehow collectively leads to functional systems that produce high quality care. In contrast, a systemic, interprofessional approach has great potential to develop an interdependent workforce that engages in the work of education, health care, and service to communities in a more synthetic manner. This allows for a focus on the health of whole people, families, and communities, which is fundamentally necessary to achieve equity in community health. An educational system that fosters shared learning across multiple professions, in settings that include but transcend hospitals, can create an interdependent workforce able to foster community health and tackle complex problems such as health inequities, unsustainable waste of resources, and fragmentation of care that leads to great cost and poor outcomes.
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