Why is community health assessment important?

Why is community health assessment important? Community health assessments may address many types of issues—so many that it is sometimes difficult to know where one starts and another stops. As a public health professional, you may be asked to assess an established public health problem such as diabetes, or you might be asked to investigate a set of contributing factors such as stress, lack of exercise, and a poor diet, which are all predictors for diabetes. To target community health assessment efforts most effectively, it is important for you to understand the relationships of contributing factors and public health problems.

For this Discussion, review this week’s Resources and the media titled Belize: Health Overview. Based upon information from the resources, consider the relationship between public health problems and contributing factors.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 3 your view of the importance of community health assessment. Then, explain the relationship of two contributing factors to one of the community’s public health problems identified in the media.