Understanding conceptually a community is critical to understanding this course. After reading the appropriate articles and websites listed on the Background page you should have a good understanding of what is a community and some of the differences between community health and public health.

Assignment

In responding to the questions below, I want you to immerse yourself into this course and try to think “out of the box.” Research points or questions you may not understand running key words through Google or another search engine. 

Please briefly answer the following questions:

1. Which factor do you believe most affects the health of the community? Generally,      these factors are classified as physical factors, social and cultural factors, community organization, and individual behavior. Please justify your response.
2. Define community, community health, and public health. Discuss the domains of personal and community health within the context of the community.
3. Discuss and explain community health practices and what are their relationship to promoting a healthy community.
4. Explain health disparity and its causes? Identify the problems related to health disparity.
5. Discuss and explain a particular Social Determinant of Health that you consider to be the most important that can be improved by changing or modifying public policy as described by Richard Wilkinson and Michael Marmot in the WHO      (2008) “Closing the gap in a generation” article. (below)

Length: 4-5 pages APA format, 4-5 peer-reviewed, scholarly references, MUST use at least 3 of the sources below.

Required reading/sources:

George, A. S., Mehra, V., Scott, K., & Sriram, V. (2015). Community participation in health systems research: a systematic review assessing the state of research, the nature of interventions involved and the features of engagement with communities. PLoS One, 10(10), e0141091.

Han, H. R., Kim, K., Murphy, J., Cudjoe, J., Wilson, P., Sharps, P., & Farley, J. E. (2018). Community health worker interventions to promote psychosocial outcomes among people living with HIV-A systematic review. PloS one, 13(4), e0194928.

Howard-Grabman, L., Miltenburg, A. S., Marston, C., & Portela, A. (2017). Factors affecting effective community participation in maternal and newborn health programme planning, implementation and quality of care interventions. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 17(1), 268.

Lee, C., Mellor, T., Dilworth-Anderson, P., Young, T., Brayne, C., & Lafortune, L. (2018). Opportunities and challenges in public and community engagement: The connected for cognitive health in later life (CHILL) project. Research involvement and engagement, 4, 42. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-018-0127-x

Levine, B. R. (2007). Toward a broader notion of community. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 50(1), 124. Retrieved from ProQuest.

Pega, F., Valentine, N. B., Rasanathan, K., Hosseinpoor, A. R., Torgersen, T. P., Ramanathan, V., Posayanonda, T., Robbel, N., Kalboussi, Y., Rehkopf, D.H., & Dora, C. (2017). The need to monitor actions on the social determinants of health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95(11), 784.

Smith, J., Griffiths, K., Judd, J., Crawford, G., D’Antoine, H., Fisher, M., Bainbridge, R., & Harris, P. (2018). Ten years on from the world health organization commission of social determinants of health: Progress or procrastination? Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 29(1), 3-7.

World Health Organization. (2020). Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health. https://www.who.int/phe/en/

World Health Organization. (2008). Closing the gap in a generation. Retrieved from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563703_eng.pdf