A community assessment is an important part of developing a community health improvement plan. With little understanding of the community, any plan implemented will fail if it does not meet the needs of the community. I would collect the following information about the community I assess: average age, race, income, and the rate to poverty. Also, to assess the communities’ health needs I would collect information on the communities’ access to healthcare and other health services. While this assessment will help to identify many at risk populations, I choose to focus on the elderly population. When is come to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and hypertension (HTN), the elderly community is at risk for several different reasons. One identified reason is simply due to the aging process, and statistically many of the elderly will have CVD. Some identified social determinants affecting the elderly community are income, stereotypes and social view of the elderly, and social isolation (Lang, Lepage, Schieber, Lamy, Kelly-Irving, 2012). The elderly are often retired and live …show more content…
Also, considering modifiable factors that can reduce the risk for or severity of CVD would influence the recruitment process. Physicians, nurses, and representatives from local clinics, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies would be important parts of the team. I would also want to include nutritionist, activity centers, and senior centers. As mentioned by Pérez, and Luquis (2014) by using the strengths of the community based leaders can help successfully create effective health promotion interventions for the targeted