Introduction
Community health nursing helps to execute a wide variety of functions. Community health nursing involves healthy lifestyle promotion, health problem identification and prevention, rehabilitation, and community evaluation (Kamalam, 2017). Community health nursing plays a considerable role in identifying potential threats that may impact the wellbeing of the participating family’s community.
Moreover, it assesses the general environment of the community in order to identify major factors that may cause health-related problems. Another significant role of community health nursing is the educator role. It may assess beliefs, values, behaviors, and knowledge of the targeted community and introduce required health teaching. It may be particularly effective in terms of addressing the threats that were identified in the participating family’s community.
Social determinants of health are non-medical factors that may have an impact on patient outcomes. There is a wide variety of social determinants of health, and their combinations may differ significantly depending on the environment. These determinants may include safe housing, transport availability, discrimination and violence risks, education, income, and environmental pollution (Kelley, 2020). Some of these factors are closely linked, and one factor, such as education, may influence other factors such as income. Therefore, it may be vitally important to analyze social determinants of health comprehensively in order to develop an adequate community health plan.
There is a significant number of social determinants of health that may influence the participating family. First, both parents have sufficient education, and hence regular income, which, in turn, may considerably improve health outcomes. Moreover, the family has access to safe housing, and personal transport is available. The participating family lives in a relatively safe neighborhood, and hence, violence and discrimination risks are minimized. However, the region is highly exposed to various types of environmental pollution. In particular, the area is experiencing increased levels of air pollution typical of urban areas. Even though the air quality is still higher than in most other cities, it may serve as a factor that might have a negative impact on health outcomes.
Epidemiological Data
Unfortunately, there is insufficient epidemiological data provided about the participating family. Nonetheless, an insignificant number of epidemiological problems can be observed in family members. A combination of environmental factors and social determinants of health considerably improves health outcomes within the family. Therefore, the epidemiological data for the participating family’s community may indicate lower risks compared to state-level data. Such social factors as the availability of personal transport, regular income, and rare communication with other relatives play an essential role in decreasing epidemic-related health risks.
LHI Topic
The participating family’s community is not currently threatened by any severe health-related problems. Sound financial standing combined with healthy relationships and a supportive environment within the family mitigate most risks. However, two major threats were identified with regard to the family’s wellbeing. One of these two threats is the probability of conflicts caused by the differences in core values of family members.
Even though the risk is not significant yet, it may lead to serious psychological consequences. A growing gap between children and parents may disrupt the existing environment and lead to a lack of emotional support and mutual understanding. It may cause the development of such health indicators as a major depressive episode in the past 12 months in adolescents. Moreover, recent studies state that the above-mentioned indicator is getting worse (Greenberg-Worisek et al., 2019). Therefore, it may be vitally important to address the issue in order to prevent the development of mental health problems.
Possible Nursing Interventions
There is a number of potentially effective behavioral nursing interventions and family nursing interventions. First, it may be beneficial to educate the family members about possible threats and identify maintenance of mutual understanding and support as the major preventive measure. Second, it may be essential to provide critical information regarding major depression in adolescents, outline symptoms and treatment methods. Third, educating the family members about impaired social interaction as a predictor of depression may be critical as core value differences within the family may cause dysfunctional interaction with family members (Dumitru, 2019). These interventions may be assisted by such health partnerships as WHO Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities.
Implementation and Teaching Process
The targeted family consists of two adults and two children, a boy and a girl who are 8 and 10 years old, respectively. Therefore, there is a considerable generational gap between the children and their parents. It may be highly beneficial to develop three teaching dimensions in order to achieve desired goals. The first dimension is closely linked with educating parents about the potential risks and introducing practical techniques that may mitigate the problem.
Even though independence is important, it may also be critical to maintaining traditions within the family. Hence, it may be vital to encourage parents to organize family gatherings and introduce shared values during the parenting process. The second dimension is focused on teaching children and hence requires a more flexible approach. It may not be effective to use complicated medical terms or teach them about medical conditions. However, it may be possible to introduce valuable information in other forms. It may be critical to encourage children to support their parents and respect traditions such as family gatherings.
The last dimension addresses the family as a whole and focuses on shared interests, values, and goals. It could be possible to strengthen healthy and understanding relationships between family members by encouraging them to meet with their relatives more frequently. Moreover, it might be vital to suggest sharing important experiences during family gatherings. Such an approach may contribute to the development of trusting and supporting relationships.
Conclusion
In conclusion, community health nursing may play a considerable role in improving health outcomes for the participating family’s community. Social determinants of health are also useful in terms of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the environment within the targeted community. Collected evaluation data was used as a basis for further nursing intervention development. These interventions are focused on educating family members about possible threats and methods that can be utilized to mitigate the risks. Three teaching dimensions can be utilized in order to address the needs of each family member comprehensively.
References
Dumitru, I. (2019). Predictors of anxiety and depression. Web.
Greenberg-Worisek, A. J., Kurani, S., Finney Rutten, L. J., Blake, K. D., Moser, R. P., & Hesse, B. W. (2019). Assessing electronic personal health information use: An update on progress toward Healthy People 2020 Objectives. Health Policy and Technology, 8(3), 211–220. Web.
Kamalam, S. (2017). Community health nursing process. Essentials in Community Health Nursing Practice, 39–39. Web.
Kelley, A. (2020). Planning a social determinants of health focused evaluation. Public Health Evaluation and the Social Determinants of Health, 37–62. Web.