Community health, a field of public health, is a discipline that concerns itself with the study and betterment of the health characteristics of biological communities. While the term community can be broadly defined, community health tends to focus on geographic areas rather than people with shared characteristics. The health characteristics of a community are often examined using geographic information system (GIS) software and public health datasets. Some projects, such as InfoShare or GEOPROJ combine GIS with existing datasets, allowing the general public to examine the characteristics of any given community in the United States.
Because health III (broadly defined as well-being) is influenced by a wide array of socio-demographic characteristics, relevant variables range from the proportion of residents of a given age group to the overall life expectancy of the neighborhood. Medical interventions aimed at improving the health of a community range from improving access to medical care to public health communications campaigns. Recent research efforts have focused on how the built environment and socio-economic status affect health.
In Africa, community health is studied in three broad categories:
- Primary health care which refers to interventions that focus on the individual or family such as hand-washing, immunisation, circumcision*Secondary health care refers to those activities which focus on the environment such as draining puddles of water near the house, clearing bushes and spraying insecticides to control vectors like mosquitoes.
- Tertiary health care on the other hand refers to those interventions that take place in a hospital setting such as intravenous re-hydration or surgery.
Success of community health programs rely on the transfer of information from health professionals to the general public using one-to-one or one to many communication (Mass communication). The latest shift is toward Health marketing with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) taking the lead.
Read more about Community Health: Academic Resources
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... The Community Tool Box is a public service of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States ... It is maintained by the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas ... The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource that contains more than 7,000 pages of practical information for promoting community health and development, and is a global resource for ...
... Founded in 2000, ADI's goal is to improve the health of people in remote and rural areas of PNG ... ADI specialises in Doctor Supervised Integrated Health Patrols, deploying volunteer doctors and health managers to work in partnership with local health providers to provide medical treatment to ... Catholic Diocese of Daru-Kiunga to help support their rural health network and services ...
... East Court Kankakee Community Health Center - Kankakee, IL Manteno Community Health Center - Manteno, IL Momence Community Health Center - Momence, IL ...
... Community health centres in Canada, are non-profit, community-governed community health organizations that provide primary health care, health promotion and community development services, using inter-disciplinary ... These teams include physicians, nurse practitioners, dieticians, health promoters, counsellors and others who are paid by salary, rather than through a fee-for-servic ... Community health cntres are sponsored and managed by incorporated non-profit community boards made up of members of the community and others who provide health and social services ...
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or community:
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)