A Healthy Community

What Is Community Health and Why Is It Important?

By Ashley Brooks on 03/04/2019

What Is Community Health and Why Is It Important?

The community you live in is part of who you are. Even if you don’t see your neighbors every day, you recognize that the decisions you make impact those around you. You’re all in it together, and you wouldn’t have it any other way!

Improving your community and helping others is often at the top of your mind. So when the phrase “community health” crossed your radar, you had to know more. What is community health? And how does it affect the lives of those in your area? and bike paths, from access to healthy food and playgrounds, from accessible healthcare services, schools and places of employment, as well as affordable housing,” Bognanno says.

What is community health?

Community health is a medical specialty that focuses on the physical and mental well-being of the people in a specific geographic region. This important subsection of public health includes initiatives to help community members maintain and improve their health, prevent the spread of infectious diseases and prepare for natural disasters.

“Working at the community level promotes healthy living, helps prevent chronic diseases and brings the greatest health benefits to the greatest number of people in need,” reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Strong community health requires residents to look beyond themselves and take “collective responsibility,” says Caleb Backe, health and wellness expert at Maple Holistics. “It’s not just about the healthcare system, but focuses on the importance of leading a generally healthy lifestyle in order to protect the community as a whole.”

Community health is inextricably tied to individual wellness. “Good community health equates to healthy people, as a community is the ecosystem or environment in which people live,” says Thomas G. Bognanno, president and CEO of Community Health Charities. “It’s difficult to be healthy personally if your community is unhealthy.”

The far-reaching impact of community health

Community health flips the script on the old adage, “You take care of you; I’ll take care of me.” Instead, public health experts agree that the health of a community can have far-reaching—and sometimes surprising—impacts on individual health and beyond.

“Community health impacts everything—educational achievement, safety and crime, people’s ability to work and be financially healthy, life expectancy, happiness and more,” Bognanno says. “Health impacts every other facet of life, from a child’s ability to learn to an adult’s ability to work, so health is critical for education and financial well-being.”

The effect of health on quality of life can also impact the desire to participate in civic duties like voting, social functions and leisure activities, according to Healthy People 2020, an initiative of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Communities that are attentive to public health can even reduce inequality among their residents. “[Community health] also helps to reduce health gaps caused by differences in race and ethnicity, location, social status, income and other factors that can affect health,” reports the CDC.

Chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, can also increase if a community’s overall well-being is suffering. “An unhealthy community tends to be obese and struggle more from chronic diseases and other health challenges,” Bognanno says.

Chronic diseases like these not only reduce life expectancy, they have a dramatic effect on the economy. The CDC reports that 90 percent of the nation’s annual healthcare expenses are for people with chronic health conditions.

Curbing the spread of infectious disease is also a priority of community health programs. Without them, communities may find themselves battling outbreaks of illnesses that put vulnerable populations like the elderly at higher risk.

“If a community has to recover from an emergency event, such as a natural disaster, reducing the spread of disease becomes a crucial part of the recovery process,” Backe says.

Factors that improve community health

Improving community health is a huge undertaking that involves cooperation between public health workers, local government, volunteers and average citizens alike—and the end products of their work can take a lot of forms. “Communities benefit from walking trails and bike paths, from access to healthy food and playgrounds, from accessible healthcare services, schools and places of employment, as well as affordable housing,” Bognanno says.

Education also plays a large role in maintaining community health. Health fairs and advertising campaigns that expose the dangers of risk factors like tobacco exposure, poor nutrition and physical inactivity can raise awareness about the importance of choosing a healthy lifestyle. The CDC has also focused on promoting nutrition guidelines in schools and increasing the amount of physical education children receive.

Take a stand for community health

What is community health? Now you know that it’s a vital component of public health—and it’s something every individual can play a part in improving. To learn more about how public health workers are improving the health of people across the nation, take a look at these “6 Invaluable Ways Community Health Workers Improve Our Lives.”.

6 Invaluable Ways Community Health Workers Impact Our Lives

A new conceptual model depicts the complex relationship between policing and population health.

A specific police action, an arrest or a shooting, has an immediate and direct effect on the individuals involved, but how far and wide do the reverberations of that action spread through the community? What are the health consequences for a specific, though not necessarily geographically defined, population?

The authors of the new study looking into these questions write that because law enforcement directly interacts with a large number of people, “policing may be a conspicuous yet not-well understood driver of population health.”

Understanding how law enforcement impacts the mental, physical, social and structural health and wellbeing of a community is a complex challenge, involving many academic and research disciplines such as criminology, sociology, psychology, public health, and research into social justice, the environment, economics, and history.

“We needed a map for how to think about the complex issues at the intersection of policing and health,” said lead author Maayan Simckes, a recent doctoral graduate from UW’s Department of Epidemiology who worked on this study as part of her dissertation.

So, Simckes said, she set out to create a conceptual model depicting the complex relationship between policing and population health and assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers to collaborate.

"Our model underscores the importance of reforming policing practices and policies to ensure they effectively promote population well-being at all levels," says Maayan Simckes. 

“This model shows how different types of encounters with policing can affect population health at multiple levels, through different pathways, and that factors like community characteristics and state and local policy can play a role,” said Simckes, who currently works for the Washington State Department of Health.

The study, published in early June in the journal Social Science & Medicine, walks through the various factors that may help explain the health impacts of policing by synthesizing the published research across several disciplines.

“This study provides a useful tool to researchers studying policing and population health across many different disciplines. It has the potential to help guide research on the critical topic of policing and health for many years to come,” said senior author Anjum Hajat, an associate professor in the UW Department of Epidemiology.

For example, the study points out when considering individual-level effects that “after physical injury and death, mental health may be the issue most frequently discussed in the context of police-community interaction … One U.S. study found that among men, anxiety symptoms were significantly associated with frequency of police stops and perception of the intrusiveness of the encounter.”

Among the many other research examples explored in the new model, the researchers also examine the cyclic nature of policing and population health. They point out that police stops tend to cluster in disadvantaged communities and “saturating these communities with invasive tactics may lead to more concentrated crime.” Consequently, it may be “impossible” to determine whether police practices caused a neighborhood to experience more crime or if those practices were in response to crime. However, the model’s aim is to capture these complex “bidirectional” relationships.

“Our model underscores the importance of reforming policing practices and policies to ensure they effectively promote population wellbeing at all levels,” said Simckes. “I hope this study ignites more dialogue and action around the roles and responsibilities of those in higher education and in clinical and public-health professions for advancing and promoting social justice and equity in our communities.”

Michael Douglas Gough, BHS 1970

JULY 16, 1952 - BURBANK, CALIFORNIA ~ JULY 22, 2015 - LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA ........... Mike Gough passed away on July 22 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,after a long illness, less than a week after his 63rd birthday. 

Mike was the third of four sons in his family. They lived on Frederic St. in Burbank while Mike was growing up. He attended Benjamin Franklin Elementary,Luther Burbank Junior High, and Burbank High School. At BHS Mike played Varsity Football, starting at nose guard on the defensive line. He was an outstanding shot putter on the Track Team.  

While at Burbank High in 1968 Mike met Denise Cooper. They were both in Dance Performance at BHS. Mike and Denise were married on July 1, 1972, and just had their 43rd anniversary. 

Mike became a Burbank Police Officer in 1973, and was a detective with the department before he retired in 1993 after 20 years of service. 

~~

Repeat post on Detective Gough ('76) but I wanted to connect his policing to the contributions in building a healthy community (and why I hand out Law Enforcement decals),  as well as the police and how their actions have an impact on the health of a city.

That said, I was held up at Jack in the Box, December of 1975. In early 1976 Gough came through the drive through, at Jack's, where I asked him if he could talk to me. 

He did. I explained how I feared going back to work & how my boss would show up in the middle of the night "drunk" to show me the pictures of his burned body and torn up face from his racing accident. Hell yes, it traumitized me but my family kept telling me, you'll get over it; man up!

Officer Gough told me (gave me permission) to quit & look for a better job. He mapped out a plan for me to get my high school diploma, take an appitude test, and go to college. He finished with, you're smart and you can do this.

San Fernando Blvd & Buena Vista, across from Jack in the Box, where '76 flashed his lights

Until I quit, when he was on duty (graveyard shift like myself), he would cross the railroad tracks, no longer there at San Fernando and Buena Vista, and flash his lights on and off waiting for a hand signal, from me, if I was okay or needed to talk to him *drunk boss is there.

I never saw him again, after I quit, but I've never forgotten him and his advice. This is why I give out decals ... in his memory and to pay it forward.

Because of him I have an extensive academic and employment CRV. Little did he know, at the time, how he changed my life. More importantly, because of my graduate work in public health, I'm able to see the relationship beween Law Enforcement & community health.

If you're in Law Enforcement and/or have received a police decal know this:

1. It's in 76's memory that I hand them out.

2. As an officer of the law you have more power than you think. A simple suggestion can change a life, young or old. The person, like my 18 year old self, might not have had or have a support system nor proper parenting. 

My mom was completely helpless and my stepdad, a product of immigrant ltalians did the best they could based  on what they knew, albeit going back to school was not a message they sent to me and my brothers.

Lastly, this is how my relationship with the BPD began. Not much as changed. If I feel a situation is unsafe I call the police. Better safe than sorry.

In Memory Of

Michael Douglas Gough

&

The 1970s Burbank Police Dept.