Developing Community Capacity, Empowerment, and Health Promotion

This report defines community health and explains social care development, highlighting the importance of primary and secondary healthcare, as well as tertiary care. It discusses social care development as investing in people by removing barriers to their potential through universal education, quality healthcare, and proper housing. The report also describes social capital as shared values that enable effective collaboration, exemplified by social networks strengthening bonds and fostering business opportunities. Key community attributes include a group of people, a definite locality, and community sentiment. Furthermore, the report explores the development of health status and health service needs, influenced by factors like income and hospital accessibility, with involvement from government, civil societies, donor organizations, and community members. Finally, it examines how community resources like food markets, health knowledge gained through advocacy, and the strength and commitment of community members are utilized to improve health, supported by capacity-building initiatives from organizations like the WHO to alleviate poverty and enhance access to quality care. Desklib offers a wealth of similar solved assignments and study resources.

How community health has been defined and social care development is explained?
Based on the case study community health is a systematic process that involves
mobilization of environmental, social and economic resources to sustain the well-being of all
people within the community by satisfying the needs of these people (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015 p.
249). Community health is categorized into two. The first category is primary healthcare and
primary prevention. Primary healthcare refers to the care that community member’s access when
they make an initial approach to see a medical practitioner. The essence of primary care is to
ensure primary prevention which involves identification and avoidance of risks factors that are
likely to cause various diseases in the community (Colombo, Franzoni & Rossi–Lamastra, 2015
p. 75). The second category is secondary healthcare and secondary prevention. Secondary
healthcare refers to second levels of health systems within the community that community
members are referred to by primary healthcare medical practitioner for treatment. The purpose of
secondary healthcare is to ensure secondary prevention. Secondary prevention involves measures
put in place in the lives of patients after they have taken ill (Ellison, et al. 2014 p.855). The third
category of community health is tertiary healthcare which involves highly specialized medical
care that is provided by a medical specialist after patients have been referred from the secondary
healthcare medical practitioner. For example, a cancer patient may be referred to an oncologist
who has specialized in the management of tumors.
Social care development based on the case is said to focus on investing in people in
society as a whole by removing the barriers that prevent these people in society from achieving
their full potential (Gilbert et al. 2014 p. 98). Social care development is against ideas that
believe that those people who live in poverty will always be poor because if adequate resources
are provided for these poor people, they will be able to achieve their dreams. Based on the case

study, social care development involves first, universal education. Learning must start early in
life and children from both the poor and rich families must be given equal opportunities to access
education. This is important because when children are given early quality education, the
chances of them succeeding in life are very high (Harris, 2015 p. 78). Also, quality care must be
accessible to all people in society for social care development to be achieved. Health is a basic
need. For people to be productive in any income-generating activities they are involved in, they
must be physically, mentally and emotionally well (Harrison, et al. 2014 p. 191). This can only
be achieved by delivering quality care to all people at the right time and at an affordable cost.
Lastly, proper housing is necessary for people to realize their full potential in life. People need to
be provided with affordable and adequate housing where they can live with their families safely.
How social capital has been described and the attributes of the community?
Based on the case study, social capital refers to the values shared by people that enable
them to work together effectively for the purpose of achieving a common goal (Lins, Servaes &
Tamayo, 2017 p.1785). This means that social capital is a positive product that results from
human interaction. In today’s world, people unite and interact in various ways. For example,
social networks such as Facebook is strengthening bonds by connecting people who share a
common interest. People from different countries have been brought together by these social
networks. As a result of the unity that is created by people interacting over social media, there is
a positive product, for example, businesses have blossomed. This is so because businesses have
taken advantage of many people on social media platforms to advertise their products which
have earned them many customers (Kwon & Adler 2014 p. 412). Also, social media has
strengthened bonds among people using it. This is so because as people from different countries

with distinct cultural backgrounds interact via social media, they get to know the cultures of each
other which strengthen their bond.
Various characteristics of the community exist. Based on the case study, the first
characteristic of the community is a group of people. For a community to exist, there must be a
group of people. This group of people can either be small or large but they must live together and
share a common life (Murdaugh, Parsons & Pender, 2018 p. 67). Another important
characteristic of the community is a definite locality. It’s not possible for a group of people to
form a community without a territorial group. The group of people must be living within a
defined territory even though for some groups of people like nomadic communities do change
their habitation. The third characteristic of a community is community sentiment. The
community sentiment refers to the bond created by people living together. The people living
together within a defined territory must share a strong feeling of togetherness that separates them
from other groups of people for them to be called a community.
How are the health status and health service needs developed?
Health status refers to a person’s relative level of wellness and illness with consideration
of factors such as physiological or biological dysfunction and functional impairment (Reisner et
al. 2014 p.177). On the other hand, health service needs refer to those that can benefit from
healthcare, for example, those that can benefit from disease prevention and health education
activities (Sheng, Simpson & Siguaw, 2014 p. 55). In most cases, doctors will consider the health
status and health needs of patients by the delivery of quality healthcare to these patients.
However, there are various factors that influence the community’s ability to provide quality care
by meeting the health needs of the patients. For example, the community members' level of
income, availability of hospitals, and good transportation to the hospitals are major factors that

will determine the community's ability to access quality care that responds to their needs on a
timely basis. In the development of health in the community, the government, civil societies,
donor organizations and most importantly the community members are widely involved. The
government is involved in health and development in the community through investing in road
construction to improve the accessibility of health care among the community members. This is
so because in most cases, community members are not able to access quality care because of
impassable roads which negatively affects their health. The government through the ministry of
health is also involved in disease prevention in the community. The ministry of health will be
involved in diseases prevention through activities such as health education that aim to sensitize
the community about prominent health issues that affect their health in the community. In doing
this, the community members will be directly involved since community members must
practically put into practice what they have been taught. Donna organizations such as world
health organization (WHO) are trying to create a link of health and development by engaging in
activities that reduce poverty in the community. Poverty is a major factor hindering people's
ability to access quality care in the community based on the case study. This is so because most
of the community members are poor making them unable to pay for their healthcare bills.
However, activities to alleviate poverty in the community, for example, educating community
members on income-generating activities such as agricultural programs are being done in the
community to improve access to health.
How are the strengths, knowledge, resources and capacities used within the community to improve
health?
Community resources are assets, for example, structures, people and services in the
community that can be used to meet the needs of the community (Subramaniyaswamy, et al.
2015 p. 447). Some of the resources that have been used to improve the health of the community

are food markets. Food markets are an important community resource that has improved the
health of the community. This is so because community members with eating disorders, for
example, people suffering from Bulimia are known to avoid food shopping since that will
stimulate them to purchase certain binge foods which are not good for their condition. However,
with the assistance of the help groups, people with disorders within the community have been
taking frequent trips to the food markets which has enabled them to overcome fears and anxieties
that are brought about by food buying process. Health knowledge in the community was brought
about by activities such as health advocacy which targeted to sensitize community members
about the healthy behaviors and disease prevention. Through the knowledge of health behaviors
and disease prevention, community members were able to change their unhealthy behaviors
which improved their health. On the other hand, the people in the community were the major
strength of the community based on the case study. The people’s commitment to implement the
measures of health prevention that they were taught through health advocacy shows that these
people were ready to make their communities good places to live in. through capacity building in
the community, organizations such as world health organizations have been directly involved in
promoting community health by first, engaging in poverty alleviation activities such as educating
people about income-generating activities. This has improved health in the community because
people can now use their income to access quality care.

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