Comment 1
A geopolitical community is defined by its geographical borders on a map. I live in a small town in Northwest Georgia. Its position sits at three geological zones, the Piedmont, the Appalachian Ridge and Valley Region and the Great Appalachian Valley (assessgeneology.com). Agriculture and the flooring industry are prominent in this area. A phenomenological community is one that is defined as “relational”. This means that members of a phenomenological community share the same values, interests, and goals. One such example that I belong to would be my religious group. My religious group and myself share the same values and beliefs, therefore that makes us a phenomenological community.
Some challenges for a community health nurse may be relating to a culturally diverse background. It is important for nurses to be aware of different cultures and backgrounds and for him/her to be aware of their own cultural beliefs as well. It is imperative that the nurse remain non-bias when providing care to any patient and treat the patient in a respectful manner. While providing care for similar communities may seem easy enough, this could be quite the opposite because the nurse may “take for granted” that everyone in the community shares the same views, when in fact they may not. Just because communities are similar or the “same”, doesn’t mean everyone within that community has the same views, values and beliefs. A solution to this would be to do an assessment on the community as well as the residents within the community. This will help to determine the needs of the area.
The global health issues within my community are the rates of smokers and the alarmingly increasing rate of patients diagnosed with Type II diabetes. The need for more education to stop smoking always exists in addition to the need to educate individuals on how to possibly prevent the onset of Type II diabetes. Educating individuals on how make healthy eating choices as well as to incorporate exercise into their lifestyle will help delay or prevent the onset of this debilitating disease. As a nurse in a hospital setting, I make it a priority to educate every patient I have (whether they are diagnosed with diabetes or not) on how to live a healthier lifestyle. It is so important because, as we all know, living a healthy lifestyle helps to ward off disease.
Comment 2
The community I live in is a geopolitical community because we have human-made boundaries. Geopolitical communities are formed by either natural or human-made boundaries (Maurer & Smith, 2014). Our town is divided by rail road tracks and an Interstate. The north side of the town has the nice shops and healthy communities. There are excellent schools and plenty of parks and recreation areas that are easy accessible. The south side of the town is high in crime and the houses are run down. There have several ethnic subcommunities on the south side. The south side has a couple food pantries and a free clinic
.
People in a phenomenological community have a group perspective that differentiates them from other groups. A group consists of two or more people engaged in an interdependent relationship that includes repeated face-to-face communication (Maurer & Smith, 2014). My phenomenological community would be the shard governance committee for the Acute /ICU Dialysis nurses/techs at my Hospital. The committee works together to achieve job improvements and bring up new policies and work practices for the Hospital to evaluate. The committee represents all the staff in Dialysis.
The community nurse needs to look at each community to see what kind of achievable goal she can set for each community. The goals might be different depending on the ethnic groups and social environmental factors. We have a Hispanic community in our town and for the community nurse one aspect for consideration should be the language barrier. There are mainly the older Hispanics that do not or speak very little English. Many of them do not know what kind of services they are entitled to.
