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Community Psychology

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INTRODUCTION This essay will compare and contrast the community psychology and public health approaches to social problems. It will start by giving the historical development of the community psychology and public health; and then state the differences and similarities of both the approaches to social problems and how they supplement and complement each other. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH The community psychology originates from the United Sates of America’s reform movements that occurred from the 1800s to the 1960s. These reform movements amongst others are known as moral movement treatment, mental hygiene, and deinstitutionalization. These movements brought about the changes or further development of the community psychology approach to social problems. The public health constitutes of four regimes and they are known as the Sanitary Science; Social medicine; Community and a new socio- ecological model. These regimes originate from South African over the past fifteen decades. The regimes of Public health are an overlapping development of the public health that eventually came to place in the 1990s.

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES OF THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS The community psychology uses four different models to approach social problems and they are as follows: Health model; Ecological model; Organizational model; and Social action model. These models focus on the availability of resources to the community members as well as the inequalities of societal structures. Community psychology uses these models in order to reduce the social problems experienced by communities. For example; should there

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