Syllabus:
HEA 603 (Fall 2005) (3 credit hours)
Community
Health Analysis
(Thursdays 6:00 – 8:50, Room 336)
Instructor: Robert
E. Aronson, DrPH, MPH
Office: Room 437J, HHP Building
Phone: 256-0119
e-mail: rearonso@uncg.edu
Office
Hours: 5:00 B 6:00 p.m. Thursdays and by appointment
Prerequisites: Admission to the MPH program or
permission of instructor.
For whom planned: Graduate students enrolled in the MPH program or
other graduate students interested in the assessment of community needs and
assets.
Catalog description: Assessment of community structure, residents, organizations
and associations, to determine health-related capacities, needs, and
interests. Applied assessment activities
emphasize the use of both primary and secondary data sources for community
analysis.
Purpose of the Course: To understand
the role of community in health promotion and to develop skills in community
analysis using an ecological framework and appropriate research methods.
Student Learning Objectives: At the end of this course, students should be
able to:
Ø
Understand the importance of context to health
outcomes.
Ø
Understand and differentiate the following
concepts: neighborhood and community; population and community; and needs
assessment and community assessment.
Ø
Define key concepts in community, including
sense of community, community capacity and empowerment.
Ø
Identify sources of secondary data to assist in
the process of community health analysis.
Ø
Describe and utilize methods of primary data
collection for community health analysis.
Ø
Describe various models used in large scale
community assessments, including PATCH, APEX-PH and COMPASS.
Ø
Describe and utilize methods of primary data
collection for community health analysis.
Ø
Conduct a community health analysis.
Ø
Understand ethical issues in community health
analysis, including the need for developing authentic partnerships with
communities.
Teaching and Learning Strategies: This course uses a combination of lecture,
small and large group discussions and community-based research activities to
prepare students with the skills and philosophies used in community health
analysis. Linkage with community-based
organizations and populations add a service-learning dimension to the course.
Required Text: Gilmore GD, Campbell MD.
Needs and Capacity Assessment Strategies
for Health Education and Health Promotion, 3rd Edition. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2005.
Course Requirements: Quizzes on the
readings will be given regularly, to ensure that students come to class
prepared to discuss the assigned material.
Grades will be based on quizzes, class participation and a series of
individual and group assignments leading to a final community assessment report
for each group. Written reports on the
individual and group assignments will be integrated into the final report. The assignments include: a windshield survey;
a neighborhood mapping activity; a socio-demographic profile; a health risk profile;
ethnographic interviews with community residents, leaders or service providers;
and one additional profile per group member (of such community features as:
places of worship; schools; transportation; recreation; health and social
services; housing; air, noise or other environmental characteristics. Each student will work in a small team to
conduct community assessment activities within a specific community or
neighborhood in Greensboro
(or other location convenient for commuters).
Reports from the windshield survey, the ethnographic interviews, and the
additional profile of a community feature must be written individually. The mapping exercise, the socio-demographic
profile, the health risk profile and the final report should be submitted by
the groups. Please do your part to make
your group project a success. No one
likes to be in a group with someone who does not contribute. Groups with members
who do not contribute, often end up with lower grades and inferior
products. It has been my experience that
the workload in groups is rarely equitable (even in the work world), and group
members will be given the opportunity to evaluate the contributions of each
person in the group. These peer
assessments will contribute to the participation grade for the class. Groups will develop presentations on their
assessment projects to give to the class at the end of the semester. These presentations should take no more than
15 minutes, and can use any type of format that the group prefers (such as
power point, web page, multi-media production, dramatic production, etc.)
Course Deadlines:
NIH Certification for Human Subjects
Protection Due September 1
Windshield
survey Due September 15
Community
mapping exercise Due
September 29
Socio-demographic
profile Due
October 13
Health
risk profile Due October 20
Ethnographic
interviewing exercise Due November
17
Community
Assessment Report & presentation Due
December 8
Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend
regularly. Much of the course will be
conducted through group discussion, and participation will be considered in the
course grade.
Format of the Course: The course will require considerable
student initiative both in the classroom through group discussion of readings
and exercises, and outside the classroom in conducting the community
assessment. It is important that
students bring their readings to class to aid in group discussion and
completion of in-class assignments. Some
time for group work will be scheduled during class time.
Grading: Grades for
the course will be assigned as follows:
Class participation and quizzes: 20%
NIH Human
Subjects Certification 0%
Windshield
survey exercise: 5%
Community mapping exercise: 10%
Socio-demographic profile: 15%
Health risk
profile 10%
Ethnographic interviewing exercise: 15%
Additional
profile of community feature 5%
Community Assessment Report and Presentation: 20%
Any student in this course who has a disability that
may prevent him/her from fully demonstrating his/her abilities should contact
the instructor as soon as possible to discuss accommodations necessary to
ensure full participation and to facilitate the educational experience.
Please note that this course relies on your adherence to the
Academic Integrity Policy (honor code).
Refer to UNCG web site for full listing of UNCG’s Academic Integrity
Policy
http://saf.dept.uncg.edu/studiscp/Honor.html
Community
Health Analysis
Schedule
of Weekly Objectives and Readings
August
18: Introductions and Overview (in class
discussion)
Objectives:
Ø To describe the purpose, nature
and outline of the course.
Ø To explain course expectations regarding attendance,
readings, class participation, assignments and team projects.
Ø To establish a common language by defining such
terms as community, neighborhood, needs assessment,
community assessment, urban and rural.
Ø To assess the assets of students
in the class as a basis for future team development.
Readings: (none)
August
25: Why community? Why community assessment? (in
class discussion)
Objectives:
Ø To develop a rationale for
community-based approaches to health promotion.
Ø To understand limitations and/or
critiques of community-based approaches to health promotion.
Ø To introduce a conceptual framework (ecological
model) that describes how the ecology of residential neighborhoods is related
to health.
Readings:
Text:
Chapters 1 and 2
Heller K. The return to community. American Journal of Community Psychology,
17(1): p.1-14, 1989
Assignment:
Complete on-line training course through NIH on “Human Participant
Protections Education for Research Teams”.
Turn in copy of your completion certificate as evidence of completion
(5%)—Due September 1.
September 1: Ethics and
Values to Guide our Work (in class discussion)
Objectives:
Ø
To discuss ethical issues related to community
assessment and community-based health promotion (including issues related to
confidentiality, representation of communities, empowerment issues).
Ø
To discuss personal issues and
their relevance to our experience working in communities (including
ethnocentrism, racism).
Ø
To establish a set of
principles to guide our work while interacting in communities (to address such
issues as personal safety, sensitivity in representation of community, making
our assessment useful to the community).
Readings:
Labonte
R. Chapter 6: Community, community development, and the
forming of authentic partnerships. . In : M. Minkler (Ed.). Community
Organizing and Community
Building for Health. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Minkler M, Pies C. Chapter 8. Ethical issues in community
organization and community participation. . In : M. Minkler (Ed.).
Community Organizing and Community Building
for Health. New
Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1997.
Assignment:
Windshield Survey (5%)—Due September 15.
September
8: Work on Windshield Survey (field
work)
Readings:
Eng E and Blanchard L.
Action-oriented community diagnosis: a health education tool. International Quarterly of Community
Health Education, 11(2): 93-110, 1991.
Warren R and Warren D.
Chapter 1: What=s
in a neighborhood? The Neighborhood
Organizer=s
Handbook. Notre Dame: Notre Dame
University Press, 1977.
Warren R and Warren D.
Chapter 8: How to Diagnose a Neighborhood. The Neighborhood Organizer=s Handbook. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press,
1977.
September 15: Community Assessment Part 1: Appreciating the
Positive
Objectives:
Ø
To discuss the relative merit of assets based
vs. needs based assessments.
Ø
To discuss the types of individual assets (and
methods to identify them) which may be important to
community-based health promotion.
Ø
To discuss the types of community level assets
and resources (and methods to identify them) which may be
important to community-based health promotion.
Ø
To discuss the appropriate use of asset based
and needs based assessments.
Readings:
Text: Appendix E (pages 246-248).
Hancock T and Minkler M.
Chapter 9.
Community health assessment or healthy community
assessment. . In
: M. Minkler (Ed.). Community Organizing and Community Building for Health. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1997.
McKnight J and Kretzmann J.
Chapter 10.
Mapping community capacity. . In : M. Minkler (Ed.).
Community Organizing and Community Building
for Health. New
Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1997.
Kretzmann J, McKnight. Introduction. Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path toward Finding and
Mobilizing A Community’s Assets.
Chicago:
ACTA Publications, 1993.
Assignment:
Community Mapping ---Due September 29
September 22: Community Assessment, Part 2: Needs Assessment
Objectives:
Readings:
Gilmore GD, Campbell MD. Chapter 1:
Gaining a Needs Assessment Perspective.
Needs Assessment Strategies for Health Education
and Health Promotion. Madison: Brown and
Benchmark Publishers, 1996.
Gilmore GD, Campbell MD. Chapter 2: Needs Assessment Within the Bigger Picture.
Needs Assessment Strategies for Health Education
and Health Promotion. Madison: Brown and
Benchmark Publishers, 1996.
September
29: Using Secondary Data Sources (in
class, laptop computers)
Objectives:
Ø
To familiarize students with
types of routinely available secondary data and how to access them.
Ø
To demonstrate how to access
certain types of data from the internet.
Ø
To introduce students to the use of community
indicators, with examples from various web sites.
Ø
To discuss the appropriate use
of indicators of risk within an assets-based community assessment and in
community-based health promotion.
Ø
To discuss the relevance of
determining community/neighborhood priority concerns (and methods of
collecting) for community-based health promotion.
Ø
To illustrate the use of neighborhood
indicators, risks and priority concerns in the evaluation of Baltimore City
Healthy Start.
Readings:
Schensul SL,
Schensul JJ, and LeCompte MD.
Chapter 9: Using archival and secondary data. Essential Ethnographic Methods:
Observations, Interviews and Questionnaires. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1999.
Kreuter M, Lezin N, Kreuter M, and Green L. Chapter 2:
From Information to Insight. In
Community Health Promotion Ideas that Work.
Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1998.
Assignment:
Socio-demographic profile (15%)—Due October 13.
Health risk profile (10%)—Due October 20.
October 6: Finding Socio-demographic and Health Data on
the Internet (in groups)
October 13: Using
Primary Data Collection Methods (interviews and focus groups)
Readings:
Text: Chapters 5, 6, 7
Assignment: Ethnographic Interviewing exercise (15%)--Due
November 17.
October
20: Using Primary Data Collection
Methods (Surveys, health risk appraisals)
Readings:
Text: Chapters 3, 4, 11
October 27: Analyzing Qualitative Data
Objectives:
Ø
To discuss methods of data
analysis for textual/narrative data.
Readings:
LeCompte MD, Schensul JJ. Chapter 7: Data Analysis: How Ethnographers
Make Sense of their Data. Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1999.
LeCompte MD, Schensul JJ. Analyzing and Interpreting Ethnographic
Data. Walnut
Creek: Altamira Press, 1999, pp.
45-112.
November
3: Large Scale Assessment Strategies
Readings:
Text: Chapter 10
November 10: No
class, APHA
November 17: Special topics (Community Capacity, Social
Capital, Sense of Community)
Readings: TBD
November 24: No Class, Thanksgiving
December 1: No Class, Finish Community Assessment project
December 8: Final Exam Period: Reports and
Presentations