Community Health Question, Please Help

Question

You have been instructed by your supervisor to reach out to the community and create a task force to address a specific local problem. Discuss how you would organize people who will be the workforce of this project. Describe some of the key points you will use to identify who should be included in this group. Who will you consult with to help design this group?

Answer 1

Dear Saira,

Thank you for reaching out for responses about your project. The first order of business for tackling a project of this nature is to determine the most important health concerns of the community. There are now online tools such as Google Forms and Survey Monkey that you can use to undertake a preliminary survey of community members.

You may want to reach out to organisations such as nursing homes, schools. and community centers and community social media groups on Facebook that you can use to share the link for your your preliminary survey.

Once you receive the survey results and have a better sense of the health issues that concern the community the most, you can then decide on how to assemble a focus group that can help you to gather information from the community. You can also research from online news and other resources, and government records and reports to learn about the community health issue. This will give you a preliminary idea about the history and current status of the community health problem.

Let's assume that the most troubling issues are obesity, mental health, contaminated water, or elder care - for each of these issues you would need to do some research on why the particular problem exists in the community, what has been discussed in the past about the issue, what has been done about the issue, why the issue persists or past efforts to mitigate the health problem failed, and current research and thinking about how the health problem can be addressed and resolved.

You also need to research the cultural, financial and other barriers that contribute to the problem and the best ways in which those barriers can be overcome.

Through the focus group discussions, you will gain more information and insight into the health issue. You can then prepare your report and include your analysis of the problem and your recommendations for addressing the health problem. Your report should include a recommendation about public education, and the creation of a community task force that can work with public officials to support their efforts to eradicate the health problem.

You can present the report to the public officials and request a Town Hall meeting at a Public Library or the Town or City Hall where you can present your report and recommendations via a PowerPoint presentation. You can open the floor for discussion about the formation of a Community Task Force, and then follow up on your presentation with the public officials.

Remember that you are acting as a resource person and facilitator in helping to address a community health problem. You have to be humble enough to listen to different viewpoints and help the community to come to a consensus on how best to address the health problem - given the community's limited resources and other priorities.

Good luck with your project. Kindly let me know, if you have any further questions.

Warm regards, Audrey Q