Social Determinants Of Community Health

The health status of a community plays a huge role in social and economic prosperity. Therefore, it is important that a community focuses to improve and to maintain its health. Successful health programs bring positive impact on a community so community health assessment is the first step to understand the community. By using the finding of the assessment, community’s current capacities/strengths and resources are identified to meet the community needs. Community health is not only providing medical treatments or healthy lifestyle choices rather also address social determinants of health that generate positive forces in the life of a community.

For the past 2 weeks, I have been busy doing my community health nursing assignment. I submitted

I found Mount Dennis is a diverse community with lots of community strengths such as green parks, library, local community agencies, schools, banks, churches and public transportation. However, I was surprised to find out that residents in the community are facing numerous problems such as unemployment, housing, and poverty, safety, education, health services, gender, income and social exclusion. According to the data collected there are numerous social determinants of health that affect the quality of life of the community. Here are 3 major social determinants of health which I felt that have the greatest impact on the health of the community. They are employment opportunity, Poverty/poor housing and social safety issues. Among these social determinants of health, I felt safety is a main issue in the community and decided to advocate for the safe walk program in the Mount Dennis Neighborhood. I felt that residents, especially women and children who are living in the inner street feel more vulnerable and would like to bring the issue to the city and stakeholders. Moreover, I felt my aggregate group who is also forming visible minority (Aboriginals) are already a victim of violence and they verbalized that they do not feel safe at night to walk around the community. Since the safety issue has been identified I planed to partner with the community and

I have also emailed the Toronto Police Board and auxiliary police for some suggestions, support and advice. Now, my plan is to collaborate with multiple stakeholders (residents, agencies, police, high school students, schools, community associations) and conduct a town hall meeting. As it is known that community organization plays a vital role to motivate community residents to participate in building healthy community (Blanchet-Cohen, 2015). I am planning to make a flyer inviting all the local community agencies and residents to participate in this meeting and to exchange their thoughts. I am going to keep flyers in the public places such as Library, Community centers, local groceries store and coffee shops. In the meeting I with my partner will be talking about the importance of community safe and how the program can be implemented. In addition, I am thinking of involving high school students and youth as a volunteer. This opportunity would provide youth, the sense of responsibility towards the community (Wang, 2006). These volunteers can escort residents to their destination. Moreover, coordinating with other community health students from Weston King, we together are planning to organize a fair involving all local agencies and community organization from the neighborhood and surroundings. In this fair media will be also invited and all participanting agencies will provide