Introduction to Community Diagnosis

Community

The term community has two distinct independent meanings:

• Community can refer to a usually small, social unit of any size that shares common values. The term can also refer to the national community or international community,
• In biology, a community is a group of interacting living organisms sharing a populated environment.
• In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

What is community diagnosis?

According to WHO definition, it is “a quantitative and qualitative description of the health of citizens and the factors which influence their health. It identifies problems, proposes areas for improvement and stimulates action”.

Community diagnosis generally refers to the identification and quantification of health problems in a community as a whole in terms of mortality and morbidity rates and ratios, and identification of their correlates for the purpose of defining those at risk or those in need of health care.

Community Health Diagnosis is the means of examining aggregate and social statistics in addition to the knowledge of the local situation, in order to determine the health needs of the community.

Concept of Community Diagnosis

Community health assessment/diagnosis is both a process and a product.

As a process:

1. Gathering and interpreting information
2. Prioritizing needs and developing strategies
3. Conducting and evaluating the MHP
4. Preparing the further strategies

As a product:

1. Community diagnosis report
2. Further/future intervention plans

The community diagnosis is a theoretical framework for prevention in the health sector. Basically, the concept of community diagnosis deals with a process having distinct levels:

1. Descriptive,
2. Analytical, and
3. Action programs.

The first two levels of information form the basis for the community diagnosis process which is then followed by community health action.

Purpose of Community Diagnosis

• Analyze the health status of the community
• Evaluate the health resources, services, and systems of care within the community
• Assess attitudes toward community health services and issues
• Identify priorities, establish goals, and determine courses of action to improve the health status of the community
• Establish an epidemiologic baseline for measuring improvement over time.

Components of Community Diagnosis  

• A description of the demographics of the population
• Sociocultural and behavioral aspects of the community
• A general description of health problems by different strata of the population
• Availability of health resources in the community and the pattern of delivery and utilization
• Non-health resources and their role in future improvement
• Knowledge, attitude & practice of the population in respect to health related activities.

Constraints of Community Diagnosis

• Community diagnosis is based on community participation and information is gathered based on their responses which may lead to biases and inappropriate action plans. 
• Conflicts while priority setting between felt need & observed need to decide the real health needs of the community. 
• Legal hurdles as the investigations are mainly community-based. 
• Generalizability: We cannot generalize the findings and the way we implement the action plans based on diagnosis perform in a community. People belong to different communities with their respective health beliefs and practices.