Community initiated from the primitive age. From time of birth until death, human beings are part of a group, family, or community. Community refers to a group of people living together in any particular geographical territory, whose culture; traditions; customs; and religious beliefs may or may not be the same.
The Characteristics Of A Community
A community is a contiguous geographical territory. It comprises people living together, cooperating to satisfy their basic needs. Community, therefore, refers to locality, a fixed territory of human settlement. A community usually participates in organizing their markets, supermarkets, schools, colleges, hospitals, banks, community centers for marriages and get-togethers, stores, and produces food items for their consumption. It creates a local social system, which initiates a common type of community spirit.
In the community, labor should be divided into specialized and independent functions. A community with a common culture and a social system should organize all its activities per the community’s needs.
A small or big community forms a network of human relationships. It is the place where we usually live, where our children are educated and the sick can attend the hospital. A community is an ideal place where an individual can expect some personal favor and attention to his basic needs and desires.
A community can act collectively in an organized manner. To qualify as a true community, all its members must experience all or nearly all aspects of culture within its boundaries. Community exists within society and, therefore, it is a smaller unit than society. However, the community also has customs, faith, sentiment, some sort of natural solidarity, common will, and common ownership of property.
Community Health
Community health refers to the health status of the community, the health problems, and the total health care needs of the community. It includes all personal health and environmental services in any human community, irrespective of whether such services are public or private.
In some countries, the term community health has replaced the term public health, preventive medicine, and social medicine. In a broader sense, community health implies the integration of curative, preventive, and promotable health services. Health care is a multi-dimensional care of well and unwell people in the community or society.
The term health is something different. It simply means the perfect functioning condition of the body. General people have a right to have effective and efficient health care from a responsible people’s government. Health care should be delivered to people at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. A good healthcare system must have a very sound and effective referral system. Health care should preferably be comprehensive health care from the mother’s womb to the tomb. Read More
Community Medicine
Community medicine is a newcomer in the medical curriculum. The Royal Commission on Medical Education-UK (Todd Report) in 1968 had introduced, the term Community Medicine, instead of Social Medicine.
The Todd omission further emphasized the need for a faculty of Community Medicine in each medical school in the UK. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and London and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow established the Faculty of Community Medicine, in March 1972.
In most European countries, various aspects of Community Medicine are taught in medical schools and universities under different names such as General Practice, Family Medicine, Community Medicine, or Social Medicine. The Faculty of Community Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians has defined Community Medicine as a specialty that deals with populations and comprises those doctors who try to measure the needs of the population both sick and well, who plan and administer services to meet the needs and those who are engaged in research and teaching in the field.
A technical discussion group of the WHO in 1972 defined Community Medicine as a system of delivery of comprehensive health care to individuals or families at the level of the community by a health team to improve the health of the community to promote physical, mental, and social well-being.
The basic principle of community medicine is to improve the health of the community by the participation of the people of the community. It may, therefore, be called the medicine of the people, for the people, and by the people. It is the totality of the health care from the womb to the tomb. However, WHO has made certain concessions by allowing each country or community to formulate its definition of community medicine on its needs and available resources. Learn More
The Components
The components of community medicines are promotable health care; preventive health care; curative health care; and rehabilitative health care. The distinctive aspects of the prevention of diseases through community medicine should include a piece of knowledge and competence in Epidemiology, Bio-statistics, and Health Administration including; planning, organization, management, health financing, environmental health, evaluation of health programs, application of social and behavioral factors in health and diseases, and the application of primary, secondary, and tertiary measures within the clinical domain of medicine.
Lately, the introduction of family medicine into the community medicine curriculum has eventually expanded the horizon of community medicine with particular emphasis on primary health care, surgical and medical, obstetrics, and pediatric with eye and ENT emergencies along with building up a proper referral system
Character Of Comprehensive Health Care
Appropriate, Adequate, and Affordable Health Care Services
To provide appropriate, adequate, easily available, ready at hand, promotional, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative health care services within the government’s and people’s available resources.
Accessibility
Health care services should be as close to the beneficiaries as possible e.g. to be very near to the people at all levels, even at the grassroots level in the village but should have a linkage with the urban health care facilities through referral system at all times.
Community Participation
Community participation aims at providing maximum cooperation between people and the profession and facilitating cent percent proper delivery of health care services. The present-day concept of community participation demands from community to provide Manpower, logistic support, and funds, and to ensure maximum community responsibility for the health care of the people to the health care by the people.
Feasibility and Availability
The feasibility and availability of services have to be ensured and the services should be made available to all irrespective of their ability to pay for the health care services. The poor, the needy, and the risk-vulnerable group of people should be well covered for the benefit of health care services. To create and maintain a cordial and healthy environment at home and workplaces with community people, there must be feasibility and availability.
Diagnosis
Community diagnosis is defined as the pattern of disease in a community, described in terms of the important factors, which influence this pattern. The focus of community diagnosis is on the identification of community health problems. We have to study the population composition; distribution of the community; the vital statistics rates of vital events of life such as birth rate and death rate, the incidence and prevalence of important diseases, and the newly detected disease or health problems of the area (Arsinocosis, HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis E, C, and B) for diagnosis of community health problems.
All these, including added knowledge and information about the socio-economic conditions of the community of the area, will lead to a perfect community diagnosis. Social Development
Treatment or Therapy
Community health action should be taken at the individual level, at the family level, and at the level of the community. The priority of this health action should meet the health needs of the community taking into full consideration the resources available and the wishes of the people, as identified by community diagnosis. The safe water supply, proper sanitation, and hygiene, the expanded program on immunization against six dreadful diseases tetanus, toxoid immunization (TT) of pregnant mothers, immunization against Hepatitis B virus, health education, control of specific diseases, family planning services, safe water supply including arsenic-free water plant, and health legislation are some of the examples of present-day community health actions or interventions. Learn More
Social Medicine
The seeds of social medicine were originally sown by Neumann in 1847 and Virchow in 1848. With the advent of the germ theory of disease, the ideas of Neumann and Virchow lost their momentum in social medicine. In 1911, the concept of social medicine was revived by Alfred Grotjahn of B, who stressed the influences of society and social factors responsible for the causation of diseases, which he called social pathology.
In 1912, Rene Sand founded the Belgian Association for Social Medicine. This Association propagated the idea that the social factors were mainly found to be responsible for causing the diseases. European ideas very much influenced John Ryle along with his group in England and this prompted him to set up a Chair of Social Medicine at Oxford in 1942, followed by many other faculties of social medicine in other Universities in England.
