Health care must be evidence based, effective, efficient, and affordable. It must provide resources that meet the needs of the community as a whole. Nurse leaders must understand and thoroughly evaluate the environment to enable the efficient and equitable allocation of resources.
- What is a windshield survey? This is a method of gathering information about the status of a community either from a car or by foot. Conditions and trends in that community that could affect the health of the population are noted and the data provides context for making changes and/or improvements.
- What is an environmental analysis? This is an examination of the factors that can impact the health of a community, such as air quality, water quality, chemical and/or industrial waste.
- What are social determinants of health? These are included as a part of the environmental analysis. There are five domains: economic stability, education quality and accessibility, health care quality and accessibility, neighborhood and built environment (human-made surroundings such as parks, green space, buildings/infrastructure), and social and community context (types of settings in which people engage). [Resource: HealthyPeople2030].
This assessment provides an opportunity to examine the prevailing health conditions in a community by completing a virtual windshield survey and environmental analysis based on communities within the Vila Health System virtual simulation. Although Vila Health is a virtual lab, the communities represented in the simulation are real, enabling you to conduct an actual community health assessment.
Complete this assessment in two steps:
- If you have not already done so, complete the Vila Health: Environmental Analysis and Windshield Survey simulation.
- Review the “Vila Health: Environmental Analysis and Windshield Survey” resource to assist you to complete the assessment.
- Write your community health assessment including your windshield survey, environmental analysis with social determinants of health, and your summary of findings for the Vila Health Executives.
- Use Table 1 located in the assessment template to help you organize and document your findings. Include this as an appendix in your document.
The community health assessment requirements outlined below, correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. The Guiding Questions: Assessing Community Health Care Needs document provides additional considerations that may be helpful in completing your assessment. In addition, be sure to note the requirements below for document format and length and for citing supporting evidence.
- Assess, via a windshield survey, the general condition and needs of a community from a public health perspective.
- Analyze the environmental factors affecting population health in a community.
- Identify the social determinants of health in a community.
- Summarize windshield survey and environmental analysis findings for executive leaders.
- Write clearly and concisely in a logically coherent and appropriate form and style.
- Support findings and conclusions with relevant and credible evid