What is Community Health II Introduction to Community Health

Hello everybody. In this todays article we will be dealing what is community health, introduction of community health, importance of community health and scope of community health. 

Community Health 

Concept of Community Health 

Consumer's health means the state of health determined and affected by the use of goods and services available in the market. According to the consumer protection Act 2064, " a consumer is a person or institution who consumes or uses the services and goods available in the market. "

The status of our health is dynamic. There are frequent ups and downs. Goods and services which we consume in our daily life play an important role in our well-being. The trend of consumption plays an important role in determining our health level. Consumption of goods and services available in the market include the health services and medicines as well. We purchase such things from the health centers. In this context, the hospitals and health centers are also regarded as a kind of market. 

There are several things in our community which are being used by people as consumers. Therefore, community health is closely related to consumer's health. 

Introduction to Community Health 

The status of health can be evaluated in different ways. Personal health, family health, consumers health and community health are some of the approaches of studying the statuses of human health. Our health is affected and determined by the surroundings, environment, social practices, and health services available in the community. There are various types of diseases which affect individuals or groups of individuals in different ways. Some diseases can be controlled by personal health, but some of them, basically those which are communicable and can become all epidemic, need community effort to be controlled. There is a need of public participation or the involvement of a whole society. Therefore, community health is synonymously known as public health, community medicine, or social medicine. 

Community health is defined as a science and art of developing a science and art of developing a balanced integration of curative, promotive, preventive and rehabilitative health services to make a community healthy by promoting environmental and personal health of a community through organized community efforts. The concept of community health has been adopted by many countries. World Health Organization (WHO) has given the concept of primary health care, which has been adopted by many countries. Primary health care gives emphasis to providing basic and necessary health services to all the people living in all corners of the world. That's why primary health care is also considered as an objective of community health. 

In the past, the community health program was understood as a program of sanitation of public places and cure of the diseases in the community. But these days, it is considered in a broad sense and it includes curative, promotive, preventive, as well as rehabilitative health services. Community health gives focus to the participation of the community in preventing diseases in the community. 

Importance of Community Health 

Community health is of great importance for us. Various community health problems are prevented and controlled through the help of community health measures. The importance of community health is explained in the following points: 

a) Production of health manpower 

Healthy manpower is an important infrastructure for the development of a nation. We need efficient human resource to carry out any sort of work for a country. Efficiency cannot be expected from unhealthy manpower. Community health is important for the production of healthy and efficient manpower as they go to the grassroots level to provide health services, encourage people to keep the environment clean, fight against various diseases in the community and make people healthy. 

b) Availability of health services down to the grassroots level 

Community health possesses a concept of providing health services to all the people of the world, wherever they are living. People living in remote and rural areas suffer from even minor health problems. Even diarrhea in rural areas of different countries has been a fatal disease due to lack of simple health awareness and services. Community health is important to tackle such problems as it aims at providing health services and facilities down to the grassroots level of the community, including very poor people who cannot afford expensive health services. 

c) Promotion of social services 

Society is made up of people. Public participation in the community is promoted by community health for the promotion of overall health status of the whole society. Such practices increase the involvement of people to serve others. It also enhances the sense of humanity and social service as diseases are considered as a common problem of all the people in a community. 

d) Development of healthy environment 

Community health gives focus to environmental health, too. There are many people living in a common environment. This common environment must be healthy for the sound health of people living there. There is an integrated and unified effort for sanitation, control of pollution, and other environmental hazards. Therefore, community health concept is very important for the development of a healthy environment. 

e) Development of preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative health behavior of the people 

Community health is a balanced integration of various aspects of health services and awareness in the community. It is important to modify the health behavior to promote health and efficiency of people through their own effort. 

Scope of Community Health 

Community health is primarily concerned with the common issues of people's health in a community. The scope of community health includes the following factors: 

a) Inspection of essential goods supplied in a community 

Essential goods mean those goods and materials which are linked with the healthy survival of the people. Food, milk, drinking water are some examples of essential goods. Due to rapid population growth in the town areas, it has been very difficult to find natural safe drinking water. People depend upon a community-based water supply system. If it becomes polluted, there is a risk of epidemic and endemic diseases. Similarly, diary distributes milk to majority of the people. It should be monitored regularly to prevent diseases in the community. 

b) Prevention and control of communicable diseases and epidemics 

Communicable diseases have host-specific causative agents. They transfer from people to people through vectors. Sometimes they take the form of epidemics and cause immense loss of lives. Many communicable diseases, which are no longer a community problem in the developed countries, are still prevailing in our country. Community health  also puts emphasis on the prevention and control of communicable diseases. 

c) Environmental health and sanitation 

Environment is the surrounding where we live. It is our responsibility to keep our environment clean. Sometimes we need combined efforts to tackle the environmental problems in the community. In such cases, community health can play a vital role in resolving such problems. For example, we can construct drainage, system, sewerage, community parks and gardens by working together with the community members. Community sanitation is not possible with the effort of a single individual. Community effort is needed with the participation of many people from the community. 

d) Immunization 

Immunization is the process of preventing fatal communicable diseases with the administration of vaccinations. It requires skilled health workers, medical instruments and vaccination antigens. It is possible with community effort. Mass immunization programs help in lowering the immunization cost and increasing the coverage of the beneficiaries. There is an immunization schedule made by Government to make it available and accessible for the people living even in the remote and rural areas. The schedule includes immunization against tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, hepatitis, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough and tetanus. 

e) Prevention of malnutrition 

There are two kinds of malnutrition. They are overnutrition and undernutrition. Overnutrition is the excess of nutrients that cause abnormality in human health. It is rarely found in the town areas of Nepal. Problems of undernutrition is comparatively more common in the remote and rural society of Nepal. It may be lack of knowledge, awareness and less availability of food materials. Community health also aims to reduce the problem of malnutrition through awareness, campaigns and provision of nutritious food supply to children. 

f) Safety, risk management and first aid 

Accidents and sudden health problems may occur at any time at home, in the yard, playground, kitchen or may other place. There may be unexpected health risks due to natural calamities like an earthquake, flood and landslide. Potential risks should be identified earlier as far as possible to minimize the adverse effects of the risks. Where there is concern of such unexpected health problems, safety and first aid are vital. The provision  and management of effective safety and first aid are possible through community health processes. We can manage such a provision with combined and planned effort of the community members. 

g) Health education 

Health education is essential to tackle several superstitious beliefs, wrong health practices and traditional unhealthy lifestyles. Community health aims to make people aware of the scientific bases of human health and environment. There should be formal health education courses, informal health education programs and regular health awareness campaigns in the community to raise the health status of the people. 

h) Control of tobacco, drug abuse and alcoholism 

Tobacco, drugs and alcohol are the root causes of a number of health problems of the people. They do not show direct causation of diseases but produce a long-run inevitable progression of the underlying causes of chronic diseases. Therefore, community health also plays a vital role in controlling such harmful abuses among the people.