Discussion
Overview: As a community of practice, your task for this week is to collaborate with professionals across the health care system. With your community of practice, in the Discussion, find a gap in care or social determinant that often results in poor health care outcomes. You will begin to take the lead in advocating for and collaborating with others to improve the health care outcomes for populations at risk.
Practicum Discussion: During this week, you will identify a population at risk in your community. This population will be the basis for your Practicum Discussions and your individual presentations over the next 6 weeks, as well as the focus of your final PowerPoint presentation in Week 6. To review, a population is a group of individuals who share a common environmental or personal characteristic, such as obese individuals who are at risk for diabetes or cardiovascular disease (populations at risk) or those individuals who are otherwise healthy and could stay healthy if they do not develop risky behaviors (populations of interest). An example of this is teenagers who don’t yet smoke but might consider it due to peer pressure (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2020). Some of the topics you might consider are vaccination compliance, obesity rates among children and adults, teenage pregnancy, or infectious diseases such as Norwalk virus, genital warts, or sexually transmitted diseases/infections. You might look also at emerging public health problems such as Chagas or the Zika virus. Some of the places you might consider looking for information to substantiate and support your ideas about populations at risk in your communities are your local health department, the CDC, and the many evidence-based websites that the CDC supports, such as the CDC Wonder ( You may also review the work of other community groups that focus on improving health care outcomes for your community. You should begin to support your selection of population and ideas about their health care problems through the use of health data and scholarly literature.
Please address the following points in your Practicum Discussion:
- Briefly describe your community and then describe your practice setting. My practice setting is a children’s mental and behavioral health hospital and population at risk is children with obesity leading to diabetes
- What are the determinants of health in your community? (https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health)
- What are the most prevalent health problems in your community or in your practice?
- Choose a population at risk and describe the health problem specific to that population. Remember that you will have to define the population’s age, culture, religious beliefs, foods, and traditions eventually as your project progresses.
By Day 4
Post your response to this Discussion.
Support your response with references from the professional nursing literature.
Expert Solution Preview
Introduction: As a medical professor, it is important to understand the determinants of health and prevalent health problems in various communities. This understanding helps in identifying populations at risk and addressing their health problems. In response to the Practicum Discussion prompt, I have chosen a population at risk and described their health problem based on the determinants of health prevalent in my community and practice setting.
1. Briefly describe your community and then describe your practice setting.
I work in a tertiary care hospital in a metropolitan area. The hospital provides mental and behavioral health services for children and adolescents.
2. What are the determinants of health in your community?
The determinants of health in my community include low income, poor housing conditions, lack of access to healthy foods, limited transportation, and high levels of stress due to poor social and economic conditions.
3. What are the most prevalent health problems in your community or in your practice?
The most prevalent health problems in my practice setting are mental and behavioral health conditions among children and adolescents, including anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, and substance abuse disorders.
4. Choose a population at risk and describe the health problem specific to that population. Remember that you will have to define the population’s age, culture, religious beliefs, foods, and traditions eventually as your project progresses.
The population at risk that I have chosen is children with obesity leading to diabetes. Obesity rates are increasing among children in the United States, and it is a major risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. The population I am focusing on is children between the ages of 6 and 12 from low-income families living in food deserts. The lack of access to healthy foods, combined with low levels of physical activity due to limited outdoor spaces, increases the risk of obesity and related health problems. Additionally, cultural beliefs about food and traditions related to food consumption can also contribute to poor dietary habits. Addressing the determinants of health for this population, such as providing access to healthy food options and increasing physical activity opportunities, could help reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes.
