Essay Subsystem: Physical Environment
Essay Subsystem: Physical Environment
Communities are composed of the core, which are the people and eight subsystems. A community assessment typically starts with a windshield survey where each of the eight community subsystems are explored. The physical environment is often the first subsystem assessed. This assignment is focused on providing guidelines to help health professional students identify characteristics in the physical environment that can impact health. Mayor Franklin Hill may be able to provide additional insight about this subsystem.
Prerequisites
Purchase Sentinel City and tour the city.
Assignment Instructions
1. Review the following resources:
a. Course textbook and/or other assigned readings
b. Meet with Mayor Hill to discuss the subsystem: physical environment
2. Enter Sentinel City® and begin the bus tour.
3. As you tour the Sentinel City, select either Casper Park District or Industrial Heights. Note the characteristics of the selected neighborhood related to the physical environment. Tour the entire city and make note of disparities and advantages of your selected community in relation to the city as a whole. You will utilize this process for each subsystem throughout the course.
4. Address each of the characteristics in the far-left column below and add two additional characteristics. Fill in the columns for each physical environment characteristic.
5. Use correct APA format when citing resources and include a reference list that support your rationales in standard APA format on a new page. Refer to the APA manual.
6. For questions, contact your Academic Coach.
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Subsystem: Physical Environment: (insert the name of your selected community here.)
Physical Environment Characteristics
Description of Physical Environment
Health Impact on the community
Evidence-Based Rationale to Support the Health Impact
General Appearance
Economic Differences
(compared to that of other communities in the city)
Green Space
Sidewalks
Road Conditions
Signs/Billboards
Condition and Types of Housing
Additional Characteristics
Additional Characteristics
Reference
Learning Objectives
· Assess the physical environment of a specific community
· Identify characteristics of the physical environment that can impact health
· Describe the health impact of positive and negative characteristics of a community
· Compare current literature to observations of the physical environment
AACN Public Health Essentials
This assignment addresses the following AACN Public Health Essentials:
· Essential II: Basic Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Care and Patient Safety
· Apply systems theory to PHN practice with individuals, families, and groups.
· Essential III: Essential III: Scholarship for Evidence-Based Practice
· Use epidemiologic data and the ecological perspective to identify health risks for a population.
· Essential VII: Clinical Prevention and Population Health for Optimizing Health
· Practice evidence-based public health nursing to promote the health of individuals, families, and groups.
· Essential IX: Baccalaureate Generalist Nursing Practice
· Use basic descriptive epidemiological methods when conducting a health assessment for individuals, families, and groups.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
