Windshield Survey Summary
Dennis Yonkers
NUR 405
March 3, 2014
Karen Wilson

Windshield Survey Summary
Nightingale, arguably the first modern nurse, influenced and changed healthcare by collecting and interpreting data observed during her service in the Crimean war (Audain, 2014).. Similarly the public health nurse (PHN) attempts to help and influence the community they serve. The windshield survey is a tool for the PHN in obtaining data within the community. Basic physical characteristics about the environment including the inhabitants are gained. This subjective tool is performed while driving or walking, and is used by the nurse to assess the needs of the community.

Community
Community is a broad subjective term. One capacious definition of the term is, a defined region one lives, works, interacts with others and the environment; inclusive is a semblance of structure and beliefs based within that society where the members define and identify themselves as being part of that group (Standhope & Lancaster, 2012). Using this definition one sees that any group can be a community, and boundaries can merge one into many different types of communities with in the same location. Using this, one sees that the American community is broken down into further sub sets such as states, counties, cities, towns, school districts, and the list can continue ad infinitum. For the purpose of this paper the term community is defined within its relation to the school district of South Huntington, NY. Using the windshield survey the public health nurse assesses the health of the community. This is performed by immersing themselves physically into the area of interest. This grass roots approach allows one to gain insight that may not be revealed from statistical data collection alone.

Community Health
The term community health answers the questions: how is, who or what