Community Windshield Survey

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to complete a direct observational assessment of a community in your area. This windshield survey will help you to identify a vulnerable population, an important community health problem, and a related Healthy People 2020objective for a community in your area.

Course Outcomes

This assignment enables the student to meet the following Course Outcomes.

• CO2: Assess the health needs of individuals, families, aggregates, and communities using demographic and epidemiological data to identify population health risks. (PO4)
• CO6: Utilize a systems-based and collaborative approach to address factors that influence the health of a community and population health problems. (PO2)

1. Introduction to the Community: Identify the community you will be using for this assignment with the city and state, and provide a brief, one-paragraph description of the community. Your community should be the area where you live or the area surrounding your work setting. The community must include a residential area and be a large enough area to answer the survey questions. Do not include epidemiological or demographic data as this is based on what you observe.
2. Windshield Survey: Assess your community by doing a windshield survey. Information about the components of a windshield survey is located in your textbook, Nies and McEwen (2019). Drive through the area and report your observations by answering the questions on the form. Be sure to include what you observed related to each of these categories, and also include any significant items that are missing in your community because this may be equally important in identifying a community health problem.
   1. Community vitality
   2. Indicators of social and economic conditions
   3. Health resources
   4. Environmental conditions related to health
   5. Social functioning
   6. Attitude toward healthcare
   7. Note: It is helpful to conduct this assessment at least two different times: during the day or evening, on a weekday, and/or on the weekend. If possible, plan on asking someone to drive during your survey so that you can take notes.
3. Vulnerable population: Identify the aggregate or vulnerable populations that you observed in your community during your drive through. What did you observe about this population?
4. Community problem: Based on your assessment in the survey above, identify and discuss one priority community health problem that a community health nurse could positively impact.Example: If you observed teens who were pregnant or had young children during your survey and felt this was a priority problem in your community, the diagnosis could be
   Risk of unintended pregnancy among adolescent girls in XXXX community as evidence by observation of pregnant teens and teens caring for young children during windshield survey.
5. Healthy People 2020 Objective: Go to the Healthy People topic areas at https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives. Find a topic area that relates to one of the vulnerable populations you observed. Click on the topic area, and then click on the green Objectives tab. Review the objectives within that topic area to complete the relevant sections of the form. State the Healthy People 2020 objective number (not just a goal) that describes your problem.Example: The topic area Family Planning would be relevant. You would click on Family Planning, and then click the green Objectives tab, and you might choose
   FP-8.1 “Reduce pregnancies among adolescent females aged 15 to 17 years” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Healthy People 2020, 2018, Objectives: Family Planning, para 8).
6. Summary: Complete the summary of learning section.
7. References: The purpose of this assignment is to document your observations of your community. Outside sources other than Healthy People 2020 should not be used. We have included this reference on the Windshield Survey form for you.