This volume is for students and practitioners interested in improving their understanding and skills in the area of needs assessment. The text follows the typical sequence of an actual needs assessment process. Case studies are used to illustrate conceptualization of the task through the application of needs-based data to effective public health solutions. Examples are drawn from myriad public health efforts, recognizing that not all public health sector agencies bear direct responsibility for all activities that could be considered part of public health.
In planning community and social services, perceptions of need come from many sources - from the local news to political interest groups - but the first step in conducting efficient and effective community interventions is to look beyond perceptions and identify the actual needs based on available evidence. Creating a comprehensive needs assessment is essential for securing funding and designing programs in governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations. This workbook helps community groups, social service organizations, and government agencies collect, analyze, prioritize, and present local data in a way that will ensure that a community's needs are understood and met. Employing a learn-by-doing approach, the book walks readers through the actual steps of creating a comprehensive needs assessment. The workbook offers thorough background information and provides step-by-step activities to address the entire process beginning with the planning stage, followed by data collection and analysis, and concluding with preparing your report and implementing findings.Whether in a classroom setting or in the workplace, this is the book that practitioners will use throughout their entire careers. Features: text is formatted as a workbook designed around tasks, worksheets, and tools to guide the reader through the process of creating an actual needs assessment the website www.rodneywambeam.com accompanies the book and has downloadable copies of all the worksheets included so that readers can print and use them for future projects demonstrations provide real-world examples of communities and organizations at every step of the process covers important topics frequently left out of needs assessment texts including survey research, and using completed assessment reports for making decisions, and writing grant proposals
This handbook serves as a reference guide for everyday clinical decision-making and provides the organisational knowledge necessary for those nurses who work on the interface of the statutory and voluntary sectors in health, education and social care.
How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Documenting the success and result of patient navigation programs, this book represents the culmination of years of research and practical experience by scientific leaders in the field. A practical guide to creating, implementing, and evaluating successful programs, Patient Naviation - Overcoming Barriers to Care offers a step-by-step guide towards creating and implementing a patient navigation program within a healthcare system. Providing a formal structure for evaluation and quality improvement this book is an essential resource for facilities seeking patient navigation services accreditation.
Community health workers (CHWs) are an increasingly important member of the healthcare and public health professions who help build primary care capacity. Yet, in spite of the exponential growth of CHW interventions, CHW training programs, and CHW certification and credentialing by state agencies, a gap persists in the literature regarding current CHW roles and skills, scope of practice, CHW job settings, and national standards. This collection of contributions addresses this gap by providing information, in a single volume, about CHWs, the roles CHWs play as change agents in their communities, integration of CHWs into healthcare teams, and support and recognition of the CHW profession. The book supports the CHW definition as defined by the American Public Health Association (APHA), Community Health Worker Section (2013), which states, “A community health worker is a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served.” The scope of the text follows the framework of the nationally recognized roles of CHWs that came out of a national consensus-building project called “The Community Health Worker (CHW) Core Consensus (C3) Project”. Topics explored among the chapters include: Cultural Mediation Among Individuals, Communities, and Health and Social Service Systems Care Coordination, Case Management, and System Navigation Advocating for Individuals and Communities Building Individual and Community Capacity Implementing Individual and Community Assessments Participating in Evaluation and Research Uniting the Workforce: Building Capacity for a National Association of Community Health Workers Promoting the Health of the Community is a must-have resource for CHWs, those interested in CHW scope of practice and/or certification/credentialing, anyone interested in becoming a CHW, policy-makers, CHW payer systems, CHW supervisors, CHW employers, CHW instructors/trainers, CHW advocates/supporters, and communities served by CHWs.
In 1995, Witkin and Altschuld proposed a three phase process model of needs assessment: - Preassessment (learning as much as possible from existing, inexpensive sources) - Assessment (collecting new information about the needs in consideration) - Postassessment (prioritizing needs, understanding their causes, and translating priorities into action plans for organizations). The model has been extensively re-conceptualized and forms the basis for this book. The content includes a user-oriented approach to a comprehensive overview of the three phases and the 14 key steps necessary to implement them. Numerous examples and practical illustrations are given throughout the text as guidance for needs assessors and those who do research on the topic. An extensive glossary of needs-related terms and an outline of a final report are also provided. The book is the first one in the Needs Assessment KIT with connections to the other four.
Needs and Capacity Assessment Strategies for Health Education and Health Promotion, Fourth Edition provides practitioners with a handbook that can be used in the classroom and in the field. It focuses on realistic needs and capacity assessment strategies with considerations for preparation, implementation, and incorporation of findings into the planning process. It also provides an overview of settings, specific target audiences, approaches to assessing needs, and recommendations for addressing problems encountered along the way. The Fourth Edition continues to be reader friendly and worthwhile in terms of practical recommendations. The twelve chapters are realistic process discussions with mini-examples at the end based on the authors’ experiences and those of others in the field. Case studies provide insight into various combinations of strategies used in a variety of settings. Two special articles at the end of the book provide further insight regarding community risk estimation and the use of metaphors to gain a better understanding of the perceived needs and capacities that are assessed.
Assessing individual and community needs for health education, planning effective health education programs, and evaluating their effectiveness, are at the core of health education and promotion. Assessment and Planning in Health Programs, Second Edition provides a grounding in assessment and evaluation. Written in an accessible manner, this comprehensive text addresses the importance and use of theories, data collection strategies, and key terminology in the field of health education and health promotion. It provides an overview of needs assessment, program planning, and program evaluation, and explains several goals and strategies for each.
