Article Review:
Tomas S. Mapatac III, RN
Regular Class

Journal study on Involving Local Health Departments In Community Health Partnerships: Evaluation Results from the Partnership for the Public’s Health Initiative.

Allen Cheadle, Clarissa Hsu, Pamela M. Schwartz, David Pearson, Howard P. Greenwald, William L. Beery, George Flores, and Maria Campbell Casey.

As for the fast track changing of the way of life of the people, the community also faces dynamic transformation so as to go along with its population’s modification. Certain episodes of changes such in line with health has been transformed as time goes along. The journal study on Involving Local health Departments in Community Health Partnerships: Evaluation Results from the Partnership for the Public’s Health Initiative deals with the development of the Community health aims to calculate the effectivity of the Partnership for the Public’s Health (PPH) in Partnership with all the other community partners in the development of population’s health. With the collaboration of the California Endownment who sponsored the study, PPH was able to supply support to the certain communities in California upgrade the community’s capability in terms of health to provide quality and long term improvements in population’s health.

The assessment used methods that can help provide necessary information to provide data to generate development of study limited to every partnership goal areas, a) community group capacity building, b) health department capacity building, c) partnership capacity building, d) community health improvement and e) policy and system change. Originally there were only four objectives, but as time passes, this was upgraded into five to make the goals more substantial. The five goals involved different themes in the improvement of community health delivery.
Since this study aims to create and employ a process to evaluate the growth of every partnership and classify factors connected with more and less successful partnerships, participants productively conducted a brief case study and the result were then used as a foundation in rating the progress in each of the five PPH goal areas.

In order to ascertain the elements that contribute to the partnership success, local evaluators, which played a vital role in this study, were able to site list of positive and negative factors to consider success in partnership. Those factors were fair enough, since both sides where justified by means of mentioning equal number of elements. Having accurate information in regards with those factors were proven and tested as those were derived from the pervious studies and literatures.

The success of the study depends on the different aspects that could alter the result. Impediments to the stepping forward of the partnership. Different factors are named for the more or less attainment of the partnership. According to Beaufort B. Longest, “health services organizations can more fully fulfill their central health-enhancing purposes through their community development efforts because, ultimately, the health of people is affected by the quality of the communities in which they live”.

Based on Rebecca Lekoko’s work, The perceived effects of field-based learning in building responsive partnerships for community development, community-based extension workers require partnership skills to work as an effective group, thus collaboration with different organization would be very beneficial to have an effective system.

It is not enough that the efforts of public health in collaboration with the different local health departments will instantly make a change in the community.
Variations in the positive side entails a twin fold action between the two important aspects of the community, the people and local public health. In order to have a quality improvement in the community, different aspects should be given emphasis so as to achieve a long term outcome for community improvement.


Questions:

How can the people help in the improvement of the community?
Can communication affect the success of community partnership? Explain.
How to achieve a long term progress in community progress?




References:

Rebecca Lekoko, The perceived effects of field-based learning in building responsive partnerships for community development, © Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2005, www.journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Beaufort B. Longest, The community development potential of large health services organizations, © Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2005, journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The progress we all seek for cannot be achieved overnight. Long term progress is brought about by a positive habit. When we do something over and over, it will become a part of us already. We must not entrust the community's improvement to the leaders only. As part of the community, we have our share in improving it. We should do our part in the community where we belong. We may participate in the activities and projects done in our community. Little things such as proper garbage disposal and waste segregation should not be taken for granted , The simple things we neglect to do may become bigger issues in the future and it may impede the progress of the community.

On the other hand, communication, whether verbal or nonverbal, is a vital factor in community partnership. It can bring about better understanding and lesser conflict to the ones involved. When the conversation is going smoothly or both parties learn to compromise, their goals will be easier to achieve.

The progress we all seek for cannot be achieved overnight. Long term progress is brought about by a positive habit. When we do something over and over, it will become a part of us already. We must not entrust the community's improvement to the leaders only. As part of the community, we have our share in improving it. We should do our part in the community where we belong. We may participate in the activities and projects done in our community. Little things such as proper garbage disposal and waste segregation should not be taken for granted , The simple things we neglect to do may become bigger issues in the future and it may impede the progress of the community.

i agree with what izatherese have said... but i think the situation above will never happen here in the Philippines. we are preoccupied with the problems of our own and until we are not able to solve that. our community will never find time to do these things.

one of the major problem is poverty - Philippines poor is expanding 1.3 million per year and 28 million cannot even make 50pesos a day and i dont think they will join in such projects. it would be a waste of time for them.

references

mark schreiner (2009 February) "A simple poverty scorecard for the philippines" from http://www.microfinance.com/English/Papers/Scoring_Poverty_Philippines.pdf

Sheng is right. In order to achive the witnessing result in the improvement of our community, this requires great effort from the population and a help from the government. The philippines is in a state of chaos, that is not deniable. But the change in any aspect sholud start now. Not tomorrow, not the next month or the bnnext year.

If we do not believe that even in our most simple way, we can impart something in someone's heart for the change that we want, then maybe the Philippines would be still in the same stage decades from, or even worst.

I agree with tomas and iza that even in our own little way, we are able to contribute for the improvement of our community. Having self-discipline and responsible leaders for example, would also be a big factor.

Community development seeks to empower individuals and groups of people by providing with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.

We must understand how to work with individuals and how to affect communities’ position within the context of larger social institutions.

We have to be an active citizens of our own country and as a resident of our communities, we must empowered to effect change.

Quote:

“A set of values and practices which plays a special role in overcoming poverty”

The process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about influencing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent us from participating in the issues that affect our lives.

A Successful Communities are built; they are not born. Working together, can create the difference between a sustainable, successful community versus one that is added to the list of dying countries.

I agree with what Francis Christian have said that poverty hinders progress of the community but we could still be able to help and do our share, such us engaging ourselves, our family in proper waste disposal, segregating non-biodegradable from biodegradable. It’s a matter of self-discipline.

Improving community health "from the ground up" entails a comprehensive ecological approach, deep involvement of community-based entities, and addressing social determinants of population health status. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General, and other authorities have called for public health to be an "inter-sector" enterprise, few models have surfaced that feature local health departments as a key part of the collaborative model for effecting community-level change. This paper presents evaluation findings and lessons learned from the Partnership for the Public's Health (PPH), a comprehensive community initiative that featured a central role for local health departments with their community partners. Funded by The California Endowment, PPH provided technical and financial resources to 39 community partnerships in 14 local health department jurisdictions in California to promote community and health department capacity building and community-level policy and systems change designed to produce long-term improvements in population health. The evaluation used multiple data sources to create progress ratings for each partnership in five goal areas related to capacity building, community health improvement programs, and policy and systems change. Overall results were generally positive; in particular, of the 37 partnerships funded continuously throughout the 5 years of the initiative, between 25% and 40% were able to make a high level of progress in each of the Initiative's five goal areas. Factors associated with partnership success were also identified by local evaluators. These results showed that health departments able to work effectively with community groups had strong, committed leaders who used creative financing mechanisms, inclusive planning processes, organizational changes, and open communication to promote collaboration with the communities they served.


PMID: 18259870 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Cheadle A, Hsu C, Schwartz PM, Pearson D, Greenwald HP, Beery WL, Flores G, Casey MC.
Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. cheadle@u.washington.edu

You have mentioned and I agree with what you said that;

Quote:

It is not enough that the efforts of public health in collaboration with the different local health departments will instantly make a change in the community.

In my perception, cliché as it sounds, long-term progress should all fall back to the basics. Basic- meaning deep down in the roots that hold both culture and traditions. People have lots of ways and means to be able to help in the community to improve. But how can one extend a helping hand, if he could not help himself? This cycle that continues in our culture. It affects all the Filipinos holistically and this must end. The question is “how could this cycle and discord end”?

True, the communication affects the success of community partnership. Through this communication that reinforces a united partnership of the community, education must be injected. Through this appropriate mechanism, it will touch the roots about achieving a long term progress.


According to the human capital theory, the economic development of a nation is a function of the quality of its education. In other words: the more and better educated a people, the greater the chances of economic development. Once this economic development is achieved, health will not be a minor problem, but a major priority.

Reference:
Ronald Meinardus,(2003) The Crisis of Public Education in the Philippines, Business World Internet Edition, http://www.fnf.org.ph

I have also read about about factors that changes attitudes and knowldege of community health students, hese students really need to gain enough and adequate informations regarding the community health for they are the one who will be assigned to these areas. Meaning that a course in community health is effective indeed to improve their perceptions regarding the health care setting.

In another study, discusses that community health improvement should be done in an approach for the entire nation, meaning it is not individualized with each area but with the same approach all over a country. the result of this study. Tracking and assessment of evry single unit became very effective and they had a unitary way of dealing issues in the community.

References:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2585949&tool=pmcentrez

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2483544&tool=pmcentrez