A community assessment is defined as “an effort to identify and prioritize a community’s health needs, accomplished by collecting and analyzing data, including input from the community” (Clark, 2015, p.357). The community assessment has many benefits which are:
“1) a focus on social justice
2) cultural acceptability of services
3) development of trust
4) supports outreach
5) improved connections
6) leadership development
7) critical reflection” (Clark, 2015, p. 355).
Also, Healthy People 2020 defines health equity as the “attainment of the highest level of health for all people. Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused and ongoing social efforts to address avoidable inequalities, historical and contemporary …show more content…
According to the United Sates Census (2015), Farmingville has 12.5 percent of Hispanic origin population, such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Hispanic or Latino. The statistic shows that Hispanic community has higher death rates from diabetes, chronic liver disease/cirrhosis, and homicide than whites, and a higher prevalence of obesity (CDC, 2015). Obese and Diabetes
Many patients who come to the Nightingale Preventative Care have the Hispanic background. They appear to be overweight and many of them have diagnosed with diabetes. One reason that there are many obese patients in the community is because being overweight is seen as positive to Hispanic culture (Purnell, 2012). Culturally they look positively to be overweight/obese, but being obese causes many serious health problems. Brest cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women but mortality is high among obese and diabetic Hispanic women because these two factors, obesity and diabetes, work additively to promote abnormally high levels of cell proliferation and chronic inflammation, which, in turn, increases the potential for irreversible DNA damage and malignant transformation in breast tissue (Lopez, Agullo, & Lakshmanaswamy, 2013). Lopez et al. (2013) state “Hispanic women have the worst rates of …show more content…
They may benefit from the education on proper diet and exercise. The study conducted by Brown, Kouzekanani, Garcia, & Hanis (2002) proved the effectiveness of culturally competent diabetes self-management education on improving health outcomes of Mexican Americans, particularly for those individuals with HbA1c levels > 10% .They provided weekly diabetes education sessions and support group sessions to the Hispanic population, and measures their diabetic management knowledge. And the Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes (SMCD) (American Diabetes Association, 2016) is a good guideline to improve diabetic patients as well. The SMCD are evidenced-based guidelines of diabetes care and treatment, with management goals for nurses and other health care professionals. They provide parameters for screenings, as well as treatment and management of blood pressure, lipids, and BMI in people with diabetes in a way the nurse in any setting can utilize in