A healthy community free essay sample

Throughout this class, I have learned some really great information about the physical and mental health of a community, and ways to better them. With the knowledge I have obtained, I will now design a community that I feel is healthy, and describe what it would look like. For starters, there are some factors that I have learned that make a healthy community. These are the physical factors: geography, environment, community size, and industrial development. The social and cultural factors are: beliefs, traditions, prejudices, economy, politics, religion, social norms, and socioeconomic status. There are also the factors of community organizing and individual behavior. (McKenzie) With the knowledge of these factors, my healthy community would be located in a rural area, with the majority of the population working together as a team to help each other out, and having a successful organization program. Within a community, there will be some barriers that could and/or will interfere with it becoming ideal and healthy. Some of these may include the accessibility, availability, affordability, and acceptability of health care. There could be â€Å"geographic barriers and isolation, transportation issues; undersupply of health-care providers and services in rural areas; rising costs of health care coupled with lower incomes in rural areas that make it difficult for families to afford acute chronic, and/or preventative health care; or differing perspectives on the quality of care, definitions of health and how it is delivered. † (amsa. org) On the thought of an â€Å"ideal† community, I don’t feel that it is completely necessary to have it be so. I feel the community needs to at least meet basic requirements, and still have room to excel. It does help to keep an â€Å"ideal† status in the back of your mind however, since there is always room for improvement. Although if my intentions were to make my community with an ideal status, I would go for these strong points to help my community: improvements in schools, location of the community, working on people getting along and working together, great organization, and the overall behavior of the individuals within the community. In order to have a successful healthy community, you need to promote your community. Some ways that I could do so is by enforcing healthy eating and physical activity, providing access to healthy food, and creating and enforcing a healthy community design. Ways I could do these promotions are by: increasing nutrition and nutrition education in schools, increase or improve physical activity in schools, provide safe routes to schools, and increase availability and accessibility to farmers markets and healthy foods in local stores and grocery stores. Advertising is also a great way to promote a community. This can be done through a variety of media methods, such as: community meetings, community and organizational newsletters, social media, targeted emails, announcements at meetings and religious gatherings and simply by voicing out to the community (spreading the word). (ctb. ku. edu) The stakeholders I would invite to be on an implementation team to create my healthy community would be â€Å"secondary stakeholders† because they prevent you from being â€Å"blindsided† by issues or concerns that you weren’t aware of. They create social capital for the community as well, which therefore makes it possible for people of all ethnicities and cultures in the community to know and value one another. Secondary stakeholders also increase the chances for the success of your healthy community efforts. Examples of secondary stakeholders are: family members, significant others, or friends; schools and their employees; medical professionals; social workers; health and human service organizations; and community volunteers. (ctb. ku. edu) In 25 years, I think the community in which I live will resemble my ideal, healthy community by hopefully having some improvements. Every community, including my own, needs a successful organization program, and the people within the community to have the efforts to want to improve it. There are some improvements in the school systems that I have noticed, such as the security system they have improved. Nobody is allowed inside the school at any given time. If you must go to the office to speak to them, you have to be â€Å"buzzed† in. I think this is a great idea, since there has been an increase in school shootings the past few years. Each year city taxes seem to be rising, so within now and the next 25 years, I hope our taxes go towards things we need, like repairing the roads, community events (to keep the community together and close), etc. More jobs have been opening up in this community, which is definitely a help to us citizens, so I hope within the next 25 years, this community will be better off financially. The security of our community should be improved, from the law enforcement changes and improvements, and fire department volunteers and funds. We currently have one health food store in this area, with the intentions of upgrading and opening up more stores. This will help with the nutrition needs of this area, along with the continuation and improvement of organic and healthy sections in our local grocery stores. Overall, after writing this final assignment, I realize my community needs quite a bit of help, in which I’m sure most communities do. My plan now, as a part of this community, is to get people to want to better themselves and others in our area, and start up some plans of our own. Maybe get some community activities together, talk to the schools on how we can help improve them, and our local health store, to see what it is they need to increase their business and open up in more locations. I want to better my community as much as anyone else does. I know I am just one person, but I feel with the spread of word, I can make a difference. â€Å"BARRIERS TO HEALTH CARE FOR RURAL POPULATIONS (4 OF 6). † AMSA. Breaking Barriers. N. p. N. d. Web. 16 December 2013. â€Å"BARRIERS TO RURAL HEALTH CARE (6 OF 12). † AMSA. Breaking Barriers. N. p. N. d. Web. 16 December 2013. McKenzie, James F. ,Robert R. Pinger and Jerome E. Kotecki. An Introduction to Community Health. Seventh Edition. Massachusetts: Jones Bartlett Learning, 2012. Print. Pg 8-11. â€Å"Promoting Healthy Communities and Preventing Childhood Obesity: Trends in Recent Legislation. † National Conference of State Legislatures. National Conference of State Legislatures. 2013. Web. 16 December 2013. â€Å"Section 8. Identifying and Analyzing Stakeholders and Their Interests. † Community Tool Box. Community Tool Box. 2013. Web. 16 December 2013.