Sentinel City: Sample Selection and Application
Introduction
The simulation offered in the Sentinel City’s assessment provides fundamental insights on community and population health assessment and nursing practices. This is critical to improve the efficiency of service delivery and improvement of health care services in the community and among respective individuals. The Sentinel City tour offers enormous opportunities to learn and look closely to factors influencing community health and capacity to sustain health needs among the people. The experience offers a chance to learn extensively through immersive virtual nursing scenario that provide population focused nursing practices and health assessment. This culminates in the analysis of the health care prevention, treatment, and interventions measures that can be utilized to improve the overall health of individuals in the community. Therefore, the assessment of the city provides fundamental insights on enhancing a common environmental health conditions that affect thousands of people in the same locale or geographical environment.
Assessment of Needs in Health Care and Risks in Sentinel City
Sentinel City is made up of a total population of 663,862 within four neighborhoods. The overall median household income for the city residents constitutes of $135,104. This is fundamental for the assessment of the population’s capacity to sustain health insurance and access to better health care services. The four neighborhoods constitute of a) Industrial Heights, b) Nightingale Square, c) Acer tech Square, and d) Casper Park District (Sentinel City).
Sample Selection: Neighborhood/Community Safety Assessment
In my tour of the city, I paid close attention to the Industrial Heights neighborhood that I found to be poverty stricken and the least developed of the four neighborhoods. Industrial Heights has a myriad of health and safety hazards that posit profound threats and risks for the overall health of the community (Chircrop & Cobbett, 2020). The neighborhood suffers from extensive socioeconomic disparities that undermine its populations’ capacity to access quality and standard health care services. The neighborhood assessment shows that it has the highest of uninsured individuals (37.5%) compared to Nightingale Square’s 0.7% that is the least. As well, the neighborhood has the lowest median household income of $24,672 as compared to Nightingale Square’s $269,550 and way below the Sentinel City’s average of $135,104. The tour of Industrial Heights led to the noticing of poor environmental conditions that pose a high risk for the residents. For example, I noticed stray animals in the streets, buildings in disrepair and others emitting smoke that was a source of population, spilling garbage, trash cans, graffiti on the walls, reckless driving and ignorance of traffic rules/lights, and high levels of drug abuse. The neighborhood has high prevalence of more health and safety hazards that threaten its population putting it at high risk of health complications (All Answers Ltd, 2018).
Moreover, drug abuse in the neighborhood shows worrying statistics that caught my interest during the tour of the city. Industrial Heights has alcohol as the most abused drug at 26 % followed by tobacco at 24%. Other drugs highly abused in the neighborhood comprise of marijuana 12%, heroin 7%, cocaine 5%, CNS depressants 5%, club drugs 2%, and methamphetamines 1%. The assessment of Industrial Heights shows that crime occurrences are higher compared to other parts of the city. The common arrest charges identified from the neighborhood’s statistics show that cannabis charges were the highest at 23%. Issuance of warrant of arrest constituted of 23%, battery charges 17%, controlled substance abuse 16%, criminal trespassing 9%, public intoxication 6%, and reckless conduct 6%. However, the overall crime in the neighborhood showed a downward trend.
Application of Windshield Survey and Community Health Assessment
The Windshield Survey approach entails a systematic observation method of an area that is made from a moving vehicle. The Sentinel City’s tour provided illuminating insights on the community health needs and assessment of environmental and socioeconomic conditions that posit serious health threats and risks to the population. The unsafe socioeconomic and environmental factors are major impediments to quality health care services acting as the source of limiting the ability of citizens to live a healthy life (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014). The community health assessment indicates that there are several key determinants that influence the health status of the Sentinel City’s health; – employment and working conditions, income and social status, access to health services, physical environments, education, and substance control capacity. Industrial Heights is the worst hit by the identified conditions as it shows adverse implications on the populations. The data collected shows the neighborhood is poverty stricken with a high population with no health insurance. Hence, it impedes access to quality health services. The drug menace in the neighborhood exposes it to further health menace putting thousands of its residents and future generations at risk. Therefore, deliberate steps ought to be taken to minimize the disparities gap in the neighborhood to improve on the overall health of the residents.
References
All Answers Ltd. (November 2018). Community Health and Population Focused Nursing Action Report. Retrieved from https://nursinganswers.net/essays/community-health-and-population-focused-nursing-action-report.php?vref=1
Chircrop, A. & Cobbett, S. (2020). Gett’n on the bus: evaluation of Sentinel City® 3.0 virtual simulation in community/population health clinical placement. Int J Nurs Educ Scholarsh, 17(1):/j/ijnes.2020.17.issue-1/ijnes-2019-0109/ijnes-2019-0109.xml. doi: 10.1515/ijnes-2019-0109.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2014). Foundations of nursing in the community: Community-oriented practice. St. Louis, Missouri: Mosby.
