UNIT 2 COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT Structure 20 Objectives 21 Introduction 22. Meaning and Purpose of Community Assessment 22.1 Meaning of Community Assessment 2.2.2 Purposes of Community Assesment G Methods and Steps of Community Assessment 23.1. Methods of Community Assessment 23.2 Steps of Community Assessment 24 Community Health Action 25 LetUsSumUp 26 Glossary 27 Model Answers 28 Further Readings 2.0 OBJECTIVES ‘After completing this unit, you should be able to: ‘© explain the meaning of commurity assessment, © Iearn the methods and steps of community assessment; ‘© involve the commurity to identify their health needs; and plan community health actions as per needs 2.1 INTRODUCTION In unit one you have learnt about working in partnership with community. This wilt help you identify the needs and problems of the community. Every community has its own unique characteristics. Therefore, you have to identify these characteristics ofthe community for comniunity identification. ‘You should know the characteristics and health problems ofthe community and expect any change that can occur from time to time. So that you can prepare work plan accordingly. In this unit, you wil eam about the ammindnity assessment, its purposes and guidelines to identify 2.2 MEANING AND PURPOSE OF COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT ‘We shall discuss about meaning and purposes in the following sub-sections. 2.2.1 Meaning of Community Assessment ‘Community Assessment means knowing and exploring a community for assessing its health status and factors affecting the health of people. Its getting to know the area, cosemunity people, and leaders in particular and resources. This information will help you to function effectively to improve community health. You can work better in partnership with the people to understand their health needs and problems and take decisions to deal with their health ere eee _Working with Community 2.2.2 Purposes of Community Assessment ¢ Toexplore its boundaries and land marks ete ‘© Tofind out the total population, age and sex wise, literacy level, occupation, income etc. © Toexplore various resources such as goverament and non-government health and other organizations and institutions. © Systematically gather health related data about a selected community, ©, Identify various resources of the community, NGO, Voluntary workers @ Hentify various soci -cultural and health practices, literacy level of the community. ¢ Record the health conditions that are threats to,a specific population group in the coniemunity. © Identify biological, physical, social and spiritual environment that affects the healt ofthe comity. ‘Try to meet the Panchayat members and establish your trust withthe panchayat especially with Mahila members. Organize meetings and small group discussion and explain them the purpose ‘of community identification 2.3 METHODS AND STEPS OF COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT ‘To help people to be healthy, you must know your community very well. You must count how ‘many people are there in the community, and how many of them are young, middle-aged, and ‘ld, You should also know, who are the very poor people who cannot buy enough food to stay healthy; which households have latrines and which do not; and witich iousehofds have 2 ‘water supply or a private well and which households do not have all these facilities. ‘The information required for community identification can be obtained by asing diferent methods and by going through series of steps. 2A 1. Methods of Community Assessment ‘The methods, which are commonly used, for the collection of information for community assessment are as under: ‘© Holding formal and informal meetings with the community people, leaders, panchayat members, schoolteachers, Mahila mandals, youth clubs ete © Observation visits to the community for observation of physical, biological, octal, spiritual environment, geographical aspects, resources ete © Information can also be obtained by conducting house-to-house surveys, and © By going through records on various aspects of health and health statistics, [Now let us learn community assessment in steps. 2.3.2. Steps of Community Assessment “The series of steps, which asualy followed, reas under: 8) Entrancein the Community Visit tothe village either by yourself or with some known person. ‘© Interact with the community members. ‘© Become aware of people who feel comfortable wth you © Have inforrat conversation with people. ‘© Find out who are the people who make important decisions about the community.Commpnity Assessment Fig. 22: Community assessment © Find out, by talking with the community leaders, about the main problems, concems, and ‘causes of poor health ‘© Find out about the number of people, families, and households that make up the community ‘© Establish trust with a family. Talk to the family about health problems within the Family and also about the entire community b) Village Transect Walk This is an observatory walk through the village living area, observing and making notes of the layout of the village, housing, drainage, hackyards, infrastructure such as Schools, shops, wells zones and areas etc. Tt helps to locate or access, map and analyze various aspects of the residential area ofthe village that normally go unnoticed (refer Unit | for details). ©) Preparationof Village Map ‘A map of an area makes you familiar with the Geography of the village. Village maps show important details of an area. Preparationof Village map is very important, Participatory Learning. for Action (PLA) method. In this method, villagers group together to prepare maps of their village using chalks, rangoli powder or other locally available materials. They can draw this ‘map either on the ground or on paper. You can use this method to map most aspects of rural life: resources within the community, location of various social and economic growps, location, of houses with beneficiaries such as pregnant and lactating women, young children, location of women and childsesi wth diseases, etc. This wil also save you the time of walking through the village to Visit every house to collect the same information. Refer Unit | ofthis block for details. ‘The community maps prepared during community assessment will help: © Tokoow the resources in the community. eile eee 1-— dee Kee Tan te an A Ee em ine C cae sa alr comin ji---— wu GRDREERE GE mac f= @ “ee 3 7 we J order tne a | Fig, 2.2: Village MapAssesment ‘@ To plan action for the community based on identification of health needs. Commun @ Toknaw how to move about in the commu © To give directions to plan health activities POINTS TOBE KEPT IN MIND DURING PREPARATIONOF THE MAP ‘When a community map is being prepared always keep the following points in mind: ‘Ask fora map ifalready available, ‘© Draw the map according tothe seal. © Show the direction on the map—nort, south, east, west © Survey the community thoroughly and understand the important landmarks. {© Collect relevant information from community leaders, senior itizens, Panchayat ee © Show important landmarks in the map €.g., Roads, river, school, industry, places of ‘warship, health centre, railway lines ete. © Give symbols to important landmarks and specify the symbols atthe side of the map. ‘© Enlarge the map by copying each square on a larger one ‘¢ Once you have a map prepared, it should be placed centrally for ready reference on a Bulletin Board atthe center and smaller ones can be kept with members ofthe heath tam forready reference, @ Engure that the map is updated from time to time. 4) Identify the Community leaders You have to locate leaders in power and decision-making as you need their participation in ‘community health issues. There are formal and informal leaders. Informal leaders i, Landlord, ‘Traditional healers, senior citizens, influential person and Formal leaders i., Panchayat ‘members, school teachers, private practitioners, village health Guides. CChapatti giagram as you have learnt in unit | is one method, which will help you to identify, these leaders. Chapattt Diagram ‘These diagrams show relationships of various institutions, organizations, programmes or individuals with each other as perceived by the villagers. The exercise is carried out with the use of different sizes of circles of paper, which indicates the relative importance ofa particular insttutions/individual to that particular village or area. Refer Unit 1 ofthis block for details, ©) Identify the Health Needs of the People (Seasonality Diagram) ‘This is an extremely important and useful exercise, which is used to determine seasonal pattems related to disease prevalence, crops, employment, et Refer Unit | for details. Check Your Propress Write Hive purposes of eomeaaity tification 21Working wite Community 2 ii) List down the steps of community identification. 2.4 COMMUNITY HEALTH ACTION ‘Once the health needs and problems of the community are identified, lst them priority wise for planning and implementing health care activities, The activities ae to be decided keeping in ‘mind the resources, nature of the problem, wishes and willingness of the community. These activites may include: © Reproductive and child health services i, safe motherhood services, early detection of complication and emergency services. © Care of new born, immunization, control of diarrhoeal and acute respiratory diseases etc. © Nutrition and family welfare. ‘@ Prevention and control of local communicable diseases, environmental sanitation, health ‘education, etc Any programme of community health action must have the following principles: © Services must be for the community at large and should be available to all, © Services should be based on available resources and these resources must be effectively utilized forthe community. ‘© Itmust work in coordination with all other agencies working in the community, ‘© Itmust encourage the full participation ofthe community in the programme, The past experience of providing MCHIFP services will be useful in selecting alternative ways ‘of working and estimating the work required to increase the coverage of the existing services, 2.5 LET US SUM UP In this unit we have discussed the meaning, purposes, methods of Community assessment, Community assessment enables you to develop an insight into te health status of the community. Community assessment process is explained stepwise. Preparation of Village map is discussed in details. Further, identification of community leaders technique is also explained. At the end we have discussed the community health actions following identification of community health needs, 2.6 GLOSSARY Characteristics + Individuality, personality Relevant Suitable, related, important Symbols Unique + One ofits kind, matchlessCommunity Assessment 2.7. MODEL-ANSWERS ‘Check Your Progress ) a) Toexplore its boundaries and landmarks et. b) To find out the total population, age and sex wise, literacy level, occupation, income atc ¢) To explore various resources such as government and non-government, health and ‘other organizations and institutions. 4) Identify various resources ofthe community, NGO, Voluntary workers, ©) Identify various socio-cultural practices, literacy level i) Entrance in the community b) Village Transeer walk ©) Preparation of village map 4) Identify the Community leaders (Chapatti diagram) ©) Identity the health needs of the people (Seasonality diagram) 2.8 FURTHER READINGS Desai, V., Community Participation and Slum Hausing, Sage Publication, New Delhi, 1995. Fisher, D., Communication in Organization, Juico Publishing House, Bomioay, 2nd ed., 1994. Hameed, A.L. and D.L. Smith, Primary Health Care Reviews, WHO, 1992 Stanhope, M. and Jeanette Lancaster, Community Health Nursing, The CV. Mosby Co., 2nd ed, 1988. WHO, On Being in Charge. A Guide to Management in Primary Health Care, Geneva, 1992. 23