Community Health Nursing and Its Impact on Public Health

Community health nursing works at the junction of clinical care and public health, in addition to individual patients it focuses on the improvement of the health of all of the people. This is unlike health care in a hospital setting as it is not restricted to clinical care and spreads to people's homes, workplaces, schools and remote areas. Community health nursing is one of the most vital parts of the health care systems worldwide and especially in countries where health care is not accessible to all people. Its contribution in educating people, focusing on prevention and early treatment contributes a great deal in the public health systems.

Understanding Community Health Nursing

Community health nursing is a nursing specialty where it combine clinical care with the science of public health assignment help so that it can be used to benefit populations. It is not only limited to preventing the common diseases in a community but is also focused on promoting health among the individuals at community levels. Nurses who are community health workers are trained to analyze the population at the risk and design programs for reduction of the common diseases. The job of community health nurses is not only limited to the treatment of common illness but also involves educating the public and changing their lifestyle for improved health.

The work of a community health nurse is wider than that of a hospital nurse as she needs to be aware of the health behavior of the people that are affected by things like Income, education, cultural factors, living conditions and physical environment. This will not only help the community health nurse to prevent or control common diseases at the community level but also improve the overall health by considering all these factors as social determinants.

The Role of Community Health Nurses in Disease Prevention

The prevention of diseases is the most significant work of the community health nurse. They look into preventing the diseases before they happen so that there is reduction of diseases. Community health nurses look into conducting the screening camps, health fairs to prevent major diseases like Diabetes, Hypertension by promoting healthy diet, regular exercise. They are also involved in the prevention of infections at the community level.

The work done by the community health nurses has a greater impact in reduction of health care cost as well as in the improvement of people’s life. They carry out vaccination camps and spread awareness about the transmission and prevention of certain infectious diseases and also promote prevention of chronic diseases by health check-ups for the community members.

Health Promotion and Education

Health education and promotion by community health nurses has a wide impact. They provide adequate health knowledge to people to help them prevent illness. Many people in the world do not know how to prevent the common diseases that spread from various infections. This gap in knowledge can be bridged by the community health nurses as it can not be covered through various health services only.

Through lectures, home visits and educational programs, community health nurses try to improve the health behaviors of people. For example by promoting clean environment, use of pure drinking water and regular

exercises among the community members the spread of common infections can be prevented.
Health promotion is based on the philosophy that any condition can be prevented if the necessary preventive measures are adopted by the community. This ultimately reduces the overall burden on the health care system.

Addressing Health Inequalities

Health inequality exists all over the world and access to health care depends on the income, occupation and the location of the persons. Community health nurses are important in bridging the health inequalities by providing health services at people's door steps in rural and remote areas of the country.

They ensure that the people from remote areas who do not have access to various health facilities reach to these health providers at home and get the benefit from their services. Health providers also take into account health issues like unclean environment, poor drinking water, inadequate house to improve the health.

Community health nurse also works as a community advocate, they take help from various other organizations and governmental bodies for providing basic amenities required for good health. By advocating, community health nurses influence changes in society so that they can provide good life to the public.

The Impact on Public Health Systems

Community health nurses have a significant impact on the public health system. With their work in prevention of diseases and early diagnosis and treatment at the community level, they reduce the cost and expenditure on expensive and elaborate medical services at a hospital. Also the burden on the hospitals and other medical facilities reduces significantly.

The community which is health focused shows improvement in many things like higher productivity, improved life style and ultimately overall quality of life increases. A health focused community is important for the nation and it improves many parameters.

Moreover, the community health nurses are the backbone of health care system and help in overcoming various problems related to health like disease epidemic or disasters.

Challenges in Community Health Nursing

Despite their important role, there are several barriers that the community health nurse is facing, like lack of enough resources and facilities, heavy work load, inadequate equipment, number of health nurses and also a shortage of health professionals to carry out such wide ranges of activities.

Sometimes people also do not respond to the advice of community health nurses, due to various reasons; may be lack of proper information or wrong knowledge. They may consider their traditions and superstitions over the health advice by the health providers. So, the community health nurses need to be adaptable in understanding the cultural factors.

The Future of Community Health Nursing

The use of technologies like telehealth, m-health has also increased the reachability of the health providers at community level as these facilities can be used for monitoring and providing health services at remote areas which were not possible earlier. The team work approach has to be increased with other health workers.
Health promotion through technology can be a powerful tool for the health care providers. It is believed that community health nursing assignment help will get more important in the days to come, due to the need for addressing the health inequality among people all over the world.

Conclusion

Community health nursing is essential for a healthy society as they address the root cause of many common health problems which are associated with poor quality of life and low socio-economic standards. By educating and helping people to learn the preventive measures the risk of common diseases can be reduced at a larger level. If we desire a healthy society and improvement of health quality at large we need to emphasize and strengthen the community health nurses all around.




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