ESSAY: Health Assessment and Communication

Conduct a health assessment of a population of your choice as you complete the following:

Describe the key elements that make up a health assessment at each of the following levels:
Community.
Group.
Individual.
Explain the process for completing a comprehensive health assessment.
Summarize the findings of the health assessment you conducted. Be sure you include a brief description of the population you selected.
Additional Requirements
Format: Include a title page and reference. Use APA style and formatting.
Length: This assessment should be approximately 3–5 pages in length.
References: Cite at least three current scholarly or professional resource

ANSWER

Health Assessment and Communication

People have different health needs that must be timely addressed to ensure a healthy society. A health assessment is a medical care plan created to help identify specific health needs of a population and give recommendations on how they can be medically satisfied by healthcare systems and skilled public health officers. The practice involves the evaluation of health standards and status of a population through the performance of a physical exam, analyzing the health history, and analyzing the environmental conditions (Forbes & Watt, 2015). The primary purpose is to detect possibilities of diseases to help create timely preventive measures. This paper seeks to discuss the elements and process of conducting a health assessment to achieve effective outcomes for a vulnerable population of elderly people affected by chronic diseases.

Health assessment can be performed at the community, group, and individual level.  Generally, a health assessment includes elements such as organizing and planning, engagement of the target people, goal development, prioritizing health issues, the creation of an improvement plan, implementation and monitoring of the health improvement plan. However, assessment at each level has its unique elements that should be observed to manage a collection of useful findings (Swallow et al., 2016).  At the community level, the key elements involve the identification of stakeholders, a definition of the community, and collection of health data and selection of a specific health priority. Other features include documentation and communication to stakeholders, planning, and implementation of improvement plans. At the group level, the elements are a bit different when compared to the community because individuals in a group can share the same characteristics with different values. Individuals form groups to achieve specific objectives and therefore do not share a similar course of life. Group health assessment demands more insight than in a community because different approaches to life expose individuals to varying health challenges. Therefore, the key elements at this level are a comprehensive analysis of the groups living or working condition, relationship towards each other, research on the cultural backgrounds of each member of the group and acquisition of information on the primary purpose for the group formation (Forbes & Watt, 2015). At an individual level, health assessment elements are an assessment of a person’s medical history, diagnosis of the health standards…