What is your idea of a healthy community?
Provide specific examples. What do healthy communities have in common?
How would you provide care for a community if your idea of a healthy community does not match your community's definition of a healthy community?
Maurer & Smith (2009), stated, “A healthy community is one in which residents are happy with their choice of location and which exhibits characteristics that would draw others to their location. The majority of community residents are relatively functional for their age and health status” (p. 394). My idea of a healthy community is to live by a good school district and most people want to move to this area, and no homeless people on the major streets that are begging for money. As cited in National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) 2013, the healthy community characteristics included the following: Equity, a strong economy& employment opportunities, health care & preventive health services, housing/shelter, opportunities for active living, transportation, access to healthy food, a stable and sustainable ecosystem & environment, safety, education, an empowered population, healthy child development, and healthy public policy (NNPHI, 2013). NNPHI further stated, “These healthy community characteristics most often mentioned are not directly related to physical health. They are what we now call the social determinants of health, such as employment opportunities, or access to health care and preventive health services” (NNPHI, 2013). The area I live fits the “Healthy Community definition”: Walking distance to the mall, grocery store, local high schools, and medical centers. The housing price in my area is quite high, but there are still a lot of people want to move to where I live because of the qualities of healthy communities mentioned
