Community/Public Health

COMMUNITY/PUBLIC HEALTH
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Community/Public Health
Definition of public/community health nursing
Public health nursing is the practice of promoting and protecting the health of populations using knowledge from nursing, social, and public health sciences’(Lamar University, 2017). Community health nurses help provide services that are tailored to the needs of the community to ensure preventive measures, especially against communicable diseases, are instituted. They also help educate the communities are coordinate with authorities to inform the community on improving public health.
Define primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention.
Primary prevention's primary intent is to reduce or eliminate the causative risk factors of disease or injury. Primary prevention entails instituting interventions that prevent diseases and injuries before they occur (Institute for Work and Health, 2015). They are measures that are designed to prevent exposure to disease or injury, causing elements. An example of a primary preventive measure is immunization. Preventive measures include legislation to enforce the ban and control of access to hazardous products to prevent injuries. The backbone of OSHA legislation is preventive care and compels all employers to provide personal protective equipment to their employees to avoid exposure to hazardous materials or injurious workplace environment.
Secondary prevention entails measures designed to reduce the impact of a disease that has already occurred. This is done by detecting, treating the disease or injury as soon as possible to halt or slow its progress (Lamar University, 2017). Secondary prevention also entails encouraging individuals to take personal measures to prevent reinjury or recurrence of the health issue. For example, the CDC's measures and guidelines about COVID-19 can be classified as secondary as they aim to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. Other secondary preventive measures include encouraging people to eat healthy to prevent further heart attacks.
Tertiary prevention is about softening the impact of an ongoing disease or injury that has a lasting effect. This is done on people who need help to manage long term conditions and or people with complex health conditions and injuries (Institute for Work and Health, 2015). For example, spinal cord injuries require long physiotherapy to recovery. Tertiary prevention is mainly to improve the patient's quality of life, life expectancy, and the ability to live a relatively normal life. An example of tertiary preventive measures is support groups that allow individuals with similar health conditions share experiences, strategies and ideas on how to lead a better life. These support groups are common with individuals living with terminal illnesses, have lost a limb(s) or have chronic diseases. Other examples include stroke and cardiac rehabilitation programs, depression management programs, diabetes and chronic disease management programs.
Example of each level of prevention
Primary
An example of primary prevention is encouraging people to exercise, eat healthily and manage their BMI through maintaining healthy body weight. These activities are pre...