NRSG 111-COMMUNITY HEALTH 1

Foundational concepts and terminology for community health and nursing, including definitions of health, community structures, and environmental factors.

Health (WHO 1947)

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.

Holistic Health Dimensions

Six interacting and dynamic dimensions of health: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, and occupational.

Community

The aggregate of persons with common characteristics such as geographic, professional, cultural, racial, religious, or socioeconomic similarities.

Human resource

The main resource in a community consisting of people who decide development directions and ensure continuity through reproduction.

Goals

Objectives individuals strive to accomplish based on needs which can be viewed through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Boundaries

Demarcations that mark one's span of authority and freedom; these can be psychological or physical.

Psychological boundaries

Boundaries based on emotions and attitudes towards others; accommodative people have wider social space while anti-social people have narrow, fragile space.

Physical boundaries

Administrative demarcations based on physical structures like walls, rivers, and roads for ease of governance and service delivery.

Biological environment

An environment consisting of people (healthy, carriers, or sick), vegetation, animals (domestic, wild, vectors, rodents), and infective organisms.

Physical environment

The surrounding geographical features (rivers, rocks, mountains), climate, and chemicals or toxic substances.

Social cultural environment

The environment made up of customs, beliefs, family and kinship, religions, and leadership or power structures.

Economic and political environment

The environment involving local community organization, self-reliance, rural and urban economies, and development policies.

Social services

Services essential for community survival and stability, including health, education, transport, communication, and security services.

Community Health

The art and science of taking care of health involving the promotion and prevention of disease through sanitation, education, and organized medical services.

Personal Health Activities

Activities involving individual actions and decisions that affect the individual health or his or her immediate family members.

Community Health Activities

Activities aimed at protecting or improving the health of a population, such as maintenance of birth and death records and protection of food and water supply.

Morbidity rate

The relative incidence of disease in a population; a key community health objective is to decrease this rate.

Maternal mortality rate

The rate of death of women during pregnancy or childbirth, which community health aims to decrease.