Community Assessment Assignment

This paper talks about the community assessment conducted to understand the demographical, psychosocial, health services and community infrastructure associated to goods and services of the city of Horizon. The primary aim of this assessment would be identifying the community needs and its effect on the evolution of the community and then would planning strategies to deliver those needs to overcome potential risk of hazards. Besides conducting community assessment for city of Horizon, this paper will provide a detail of healthcare associated needs of the community and then would establish the role of health promotion events in advocating, mediating and enabling the meeting of the needs for the community.

Running head: COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Community assessment is known as the process using which strengths, weaknesses,
needs and assets of any specific community could be identified (Laymon et al. 2015).
Community assessment is the amalgamation of three steps in which the present state of the
community is assessed, its desired situation within a specific time period is visualized and then a
comparison between the actual state and visualized condition is achieved (Stanhope and
Lancaster 2015). This paper would also talk about the community assessment conducted to
understand the demographical, psychosocial, health services and community infrastructure
associated to goods and services of the city of Horizon, which is a fictional, virtual city
established by the University of South Australia. The primary aim of this assessment would be
identifying the community needs and its effect on the evolution of the community and then
would planning strategies to deliver those needs to overcome potential risk of hazards (Giger
2016). Besides conducting community assessment for city of Horizon, this paper will provide a
detail of healthcare associated needs of the community and then would establish the role of
health promotion events in advocating, mediating and enabling the meeting of the needs for the
community.
Part A: Community assessment
A.1. Profile and analysis of demography
The city of Horizon is located at the south-east coastal region of South Australia. This
city is 320 Kilometer away from Adelaide. The demographic of this city is made up of complete
land and few water bodies. Due to the geographical presence in between two metropolitan cities,
Adelaide and Melbourne, the city has become the primary tourist attraction for people who are

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willing to visit limestone coast. The geographical location of this city is between Melbourne and
Adelaide with the coastal area of south Australian sea and the elevation level is 1210 ft above the
sea level. The climate of this area is composed of average 78 degree Fahrenheit as the maximum
temperature recorded and 49 degree Fahrenheit as minimum temperature. Due to these, the
average annual temperature of this city is around 62 degree Fahrenheit. Further, being a coastal
area the weather of this city is pleasant and extreme conditions are witnessed rarely (University
of South Australia 2019). The population of this city, as is 30,000 and the age distribution of
this area is composed of 10.1% of people under 5 years of age, 37.4% under 18 years of age,
6.5% above the age of 65 and within the complete population, 49.8% are female. Therefore,
equal gender distribution is witnessed in the demographic of this city. Within this population,
number of unmarried individuals were higher than that of the married couples therefore, single,
widowed and separated individual were the large portion of society of the city of Horizon
(University of South Australia 2019). This reflected in the family composition of the city, as
majority of the children are infants or adolescents where 52% children are of 6 to 9 years, 28%
of 8 to 17 years and 12% were higher than that. The ethnic diversity of the population could be
understood from the fact that they are strong believer of multicultural society and due to this
their sociality composition is inclusive of main land Chinese community, Indians, Hispanic,
Philippines, aboriginal Australians and British (University of South Australia 2019).
A.2. Psychosocial profile:
These are the aspects which affects the health and wellbeing of the community, such as
education, employment, housing, income, law enforcements, leadership arrangement, emergency
services, and transport and community services (Stoops et al. 2016). The education profile of
this community was inclusive of preschool and learning centres for infants and children, primary

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and high schools for children from 10 to 18 years children and then south Australian university
for individuals aspiring higher education. Therefore, the educational facilities of this city
provided a detailed and complete opportunity to develop their physical and mental growth so that
they could be provided with both internal and external scope of growth. The employment of this
area was dependent on tourism as majority of the people were associated with hotel and
hospitality business. The rate of employment therefore was based on self-employment and due to
this 65% people were employed under their own hotel, café. Restaurant, amusement facility,
library and other businesses. Majority of the individual of this community owns a house as
84.7% people lived in their own house; however people living in rents are paying AUD 1094 on
average as their rent. Besides that, tourists were provided with high or moderate level hotels,
horizon’s backpacker’s hostel so that conformable and easy hotel stay could be provided to the
tourists. Further, median annual household income of this community is AUD 52,393, with only
12.8% people identified under the level of poverty. Crime rate of this community, on the other
hand, is much higher than that of the national statistics as only 1.16 policemen were employed
for 1000 citizens and the total number of police staff was 40, however the number of rapes,
murders and assaults were completely eliminated from the community. As transport is one of
the primary industries of the city, mean travel time to work for this community was 27.9
minutes. The city of horizon had several communications and emergency service means using
which healthcare needs of the communities were addressed (University of South Australia 2019).

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A.3. Community infrastructure, goods and services
This aspect of the community would inclusive of the community’s preference of food,
shopping, leisure and sport, entertainment and recreation facilities. Food and accommodation
services contributed with 7% in the entire industry of the community and hence, their role was
pivotal in this case. Further, the primary industry for the economy of this city was hotels and
restaurants and hence, it contributed by 43% in the industry. The city has several facilities for
recreational activities and relaxation events such as fishing, sailing, trail bike riding, and hiking
and winery excursions. In the mean time it was seen that 355 youth were associated to sport of
Map of City of Horizon, South Australia (

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fitness activities. Due to its natural locations and scenic beauty it is one of the most important
tourist destinations in Australia (University of South Australia 2019).
A.4. Health services and recourses
In this category the presence of health resources such as hospitals, clinics, aged-care
facilities and other specialist care facilities would be discussed. Besides that the number of social
service and welfare services would be discussed. This community has 46 healthcare physicians
for every 1000 people, 41 dentists, 74 mental healthcare professionals, and 58 other healthcare
providers. With one tertiary level of hospital, the city has ample numbers of healthcare facilities
and professionals specialized in as, Radiology, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy, Podiatry and Medical
science services, as well as a GP Plus clinic. Majority of the people admitted to healthcare
facilities were affected with pneumonia (374), health disease (248) and myocardial infarction
(133) (University of South Australia 2019).
Part B: Identification of potential heath issue of this community
After conducting the community assessment, it was seen that there is a huge difference
between the enrolment of indigenous/aboriginal and non-indigenous, who took part in the
women’s preventative health services (Tapia et al., 2017). As per the demographic data, it was
seen that on every one non indigenous women, 10 aboriginal women would develop breast
cancer and the rate was higher by 25%. Therefore, it was seen that healthcare services and its
achievement to the population were affected with different social determinants such as race,
ethnicity, class, income and availability of healthcare. As per Ong-Flaherty (2015), despite of the
advancement of the diagnosis and treatment procedure, evidences of racial and ethnical
discrimination are also witnessed in the healthcare processes for the minority groups. Patients of

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minority group were provided with low quality care than the non-minority group in the
healthcare facilities. This could be seen due to the acculturation of the healthcare professional
around the world (Schouler-Ocak et al. 2015). Acculturation is the concept in which ethnical
disparity increases the difference between minorities and non-minorities due to the language,
cultural and behavioural differences. Hong and Lee (2016) mentions that due to the advancement
of the healthcare processes majority of the healthcare professionals in the Australian healthcare
facilities are migratory and they have shifted to increases their career chances. Therefore,
cultural difference, thought process and attitude differs among the native and migratory
healthcare facilities. Hence, these social determinants might be responsible for the leading
healthcare disparities for indigenous/aboriginal and non-indigenous women (Schouler-Ocak et al.
2015). Besides that, it was seen through the research by Ong-Flaherty (2015) that healthcare
disparity among minorities and non-minorities occurs due to the presence of unawareness of the
healthcare processes among the minority group. Awareness for healthcare strategies and
processes is an important step for the achievement of the healthcare interventions for the
population. Reasons such as social stigma, discrimination, violence could be the reason for the
disparity shown in the demographic profile of the horizon community (Thomas 2014).
Part C: Health promotion
To make the indigenous/aboriginal achieve the beneficial strategies of women healthcare
programs, healthcare professionals should carry out promotional programs so that advocating,
mediating and enabling the healthcare promotional program (World Health Organization 2019).
As mentioned in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, the local government would be
provided with several strategies to implement, several re-orientation of the health promotional
program, strengthening of the communication between the minority group and the healthcare

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facilities so that using that, strong and effective public health program could be developed
(World Health Organization 2019). Healthcare workers should start communicating with
aboriginal community and organize health promotional programs in the areas where aboriginal
community prevails so that majority of the people could be provided with awareness for
healthcare processes. Mossialos et al. (2015) also mentioned that healthcare workers should also
provide knowledge of governmental policies, beneficial schemes and policies that help them to
achieve improved healthcare. Therefore, these are the strategies that should be followed by the
healthcare professionals to include the aboriginal community into the healthcare process
(Edelman, Mandle and Kudzma 2017).

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References
Edelman, C.L., Mandle, C.L. and Kudzma, E.C., 2017. Health promotion throughout the life
span. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Giger, J.N., 2016. Transcultural nursing: Assessment and intervention. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Hong, S.J. and Lee, J.M., 2016. Acculturation on Stress, Quality of Life, and Self-Esteem in
Married Immigrant Women in Korea. International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-
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Stoops, J., Crauwels, S., Waud, M., Claes, J., Lievens, B. and Van Campenhout, L., 2016.
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Available at: https://lo.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=3552 [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].
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