Community Nutrition is a principle to help in preventing disease and promoting to improve the health, nutrition, and well being of individuals and groups within communities.
Public Health Nutrition focuses on issues that affect the whole population rather than the specific dietary needs of individuals.
Focus in helping the community in nutrient intake needed either individuals or in grouping.
The emphasis is on promoting health and disease prevention.
Focus on health improvement by advising and help on dietary intake.
Include every types of nutrition program targeting the community either funded by government or private sector
A program conducted by government agencies which had been responsible to give health service to people whom live in certain area.
Usually a registered dietitians (RDs) or licensed dietitians(LDs) and work at hospitals, clinics, health maintenance organizations, voluntary health organizations, worksites, and other nongovernment places.
Some of them are RDs and LDs usually provides nutrition services through government agencies.
QUESTION 2
What is community needs assessment? Explain in your own words the seven (7) principles and steps of needs assessment. (10 marks)
Community needs assessment is a process to evaluate the health and nutritional status of the community, finding the real health and nutrition need, and to discover the places that lack of the needs.
Principle and steps of needs assessment:
Define the nutritional problem
Find what is the actual nutrition problem of the community before doing the assessment.
2) set the parameters of the assessment
Identify the specific area to which the data want to be obtain.
3) Collect data:
Before collecting a data the real scope has to be identify then the collection of data can be proceed to the people whom make the target population.
about the community
The data base on quantitative and qualitative can be derive directly from the community itself.
about the background condition
the living situation of the community may affected their selection of diet, how the population live and where they get their medical attention at. All this affected their health and nutritional status. The influence of believe, human knowledge and people perception may also result in determine the target population diet intake.
about individuals who represent the target population
use the data which already exist
Collect another data concerning the target population because the data non-existence.
4) Analyze and interpret the data
Data collected about the community and background conditions that influence the target population been analyze and examine before being compare with the data obtain from the aimed population and compile together to make an extensive report.
5) Share the findings of the assessment
The data obtain from the assessment very useful to create alert on the specific places nutritional problem. Besides it may build cooperation among the organizations and agencies and many others.
6) Set priorities
After the assessment been done the researcher should know where to give it’s effoert to make sure there is always an improvement in the health of the population.
7) Choose a plan of action
The nutritionist have to share the findings with people whom concern wth the health of the targeted population. from there the way to improve the condition can be found and the problem the target population had can be reduce to minimal level.
QUESTION 3
Explain the advantages and limitations of using these methods of measuring the food consumption of individuals:
24-hour Recall Method
Daily Food Record Method or Food Dairy Method
Diet History Method
Food Frequency Method
(20 marks)
Method
Advantages
Limitations
24-hour Recall Method
This type of method easy to done either through phone or in person as it consume only little amount of time.
The data obtain from 24 hour recall method cannot be use to determine one person dietary habit.
The respondent may have problem recalling the food they take on the previous day.
Daily Food Record Method or Food Dairy Method
Provide true and detail information about food products, including brand names and methods of food preparation and eliminate the certainty that goes with trying to recall the foods eaten.
Unwell trained respondents may eliminate some of the food they consume to make ease what they are recording.
example: A respondent may not document the snack they eat in order to reduce the thing they have to write on their diary.
Diet History Method
the advantage of diet history method is it easy to admin
Not practical for large population study
best use to provide qualitative not quantitative data
true validation of the diet history method probably not possible
Food Frequency Method
Self administered, analyzed at a reasonable cost.
Method done dependant on the memory. therefore have same limitation with other method.
The food list on the questionnaire should be short enough to make sure the food usually consume can be added in the list.
QUESTION 4
Recent social and economic trends have important consequences for community nutrition. For example, the demographic profile of many communities is changing rapidly, along with the client mix served by community nutritionists. Elaborate further on 5 (five) other current trends that are leading indicators of change in the community
(20 marks).
An aging population
The increasing of people age increase the alertness of their health. This had cause the nutritionist to give more suitable nutrition advice to the older people as these older population may develop chronic disease that need different attention and diet than the younger people. Besides, these populations also need more medical attention and service. Therefore, suitable accommodation is a must to cover these population medical needs.
Generational diversity
Nowadays, one of the challenge community nutritionist have to face is the different generation living together in one community. The credibility will be challenge in planning various types of diet suitable for each other. Hence, further understanding on the nutrition needs on every stage of age needed to make sure the right age get the right nutrition intake guidelines.
Challenge of the Twenty-First-Century Lifestyle
Inactive lifestyle of today world population had developed problem on weight managing. Besides, hectic working hour had change the eating habit from natural food to process food also help in increasing the scenario. The role of the nutritionist begins here to control the problem before it exceed to danger level. Their responsibility is to acknowledge to the community the danger of being overweight and advice them on their food intake.
Global environmental Challenges for public health
Many living creatures died as their living places been destroyed by people whom irresponsible to the environment. This had cause limitation on the availability of good food.
Increasing demands for nutrition and health care services
The older generations realize the benefit to care about their health life. It become the opportunity to the nutritionist to give advice and share their knowledge as this generation is very concern with their health.
QUESTION 5
a) List down 6 (six) of the 7 (seven) steps in designing, implementing and
evaluating nutrition programs. ( 5 marks )
1) Review the results of the Community Needs Assessment
Define program goals and objective
Develop a program plan
Design the intervention
Design the nutrition education component
Develop the marketing plan
4) Define the management system
5) Identify funding sources
6) Implement the program
b Briefly discuss three reasons for conducting evaluations of programs.
( 5 marks )
Help managers to make decision about the short and long term operation of the programs
Serve to inform the community at large about a programs success and failure. The success of the implement program may help in improving the condition of other places community.
To determine whether some elements of a program should be change. Sometimes parts of the program develop may not suitable to be implement. Therefore, on the evaluating process the working part will be retain and unworking part will be review and reconsidered to be use or not in the future.
QUESTION 6
a. While conducting a nutrition survey, name 3 (three) methods of obtaining
data about the target population? (5 marks)
3 Methods of obtaining data about the target population are:
Survey
Using this method the data obtain either from structured interview or questionnaire. This method considered very easy as it can be handle by the people themselves and only interview have to be handle by the surveyor. Survey also can collect data from a lot of people.
Screening
The importance of this method is it help to prevent and slow down the development of disease after the disease had been detected. Usually the screening method conducted at shopping complex or at exhibition booth on particular event. On this event people are promote to check their health status and when the results gain it will be compared with the risk level. Then, if they have the risk they will be advice to have further medical attention.
Focus Groups
Using this method a group consist of 5 to 12 people form and a moderator will become the group leader. The data obtain from every group member by asking them to share their beliefs, experience, concerns and problems.
Note down at 3 (three) most relevant questions to ask when designing a survey. (5 marks)
Is the format of the question clear?
The question should be clearly state what it wants and the kind of answers it need.
Is the survey comprehensive but brief?
The numbers of question should be reasonable to make sure the respondent does not get bored, finish it on given time and give accurate answer.
Is the survey suitable for the target population?
The survey questions should be given to the right people whose the data want to be obtain. eg. Survey made to gain data from children nutrition not suitable given to young adult as their nutrient intake differ.
QUESTION 7
Define the following terms:-
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why.
Public Health
The science and practice of protecting and improving the health of a community, as by preventive medicine, health education, control of communicable diseases, application of sanitary measures, and monitoring of environmental hazards
Community Interventions
A group of people who are located in a particular space sharing values and interact with a social system work together to promote health and prevent disease and are design to change a preexisting condition related to the target audience’s behavior.
Nutrition Education
Nutrition education build specially for adults to educate on the nutrition skills to alter the eating and physical movements patterns among the adults.
Food Assistance Program
The Food Assistance Program supplements the food purchasing power of low-income individuals and families.
Health Care Systems
Health care systems are composed of individuals and organizations that aim to meet the health care needs of target populations.
Nutrition Surveillance
The continuous assessment of nutritional status for the purpose of detecting changes in trends or distributions so that corrective measure can be taken.
Dietary Guidelines
Dietary guidelines are typically broad plans that focus on goal statements related to overall nutrient intake and daily eating patterns.
Household Food Consumption
The total amount of food available for consumption in the household, generally exclude the food away from home unless it was brought from home.
National Nutrition Policy
A set of nationwide guidelines that specify how the nutritional needs of the population will be met.
(20 marks)
