CHN

Community Diagnosis

Prepared by: A.U

Imam
Community Diagnosis
- It is an organized process of identifying
accurately the nature and relative size of the
health problems of a community.
- It is a systematic examination of the health
status indicators for a given Population that is
used to identify key problems in a community
Community diagnosis
 - Identifies needs.
- Identifies resources, needs, constraints and
problems.
- Identifies physical, social and cultural
characteristics of the community.
- Identifies disease patterns.
- Identifies demographic characteristics of the
community
Needs Assessment
 Process of identifying the community wants,
strength, weaknesses and constraints of which
may have impact on the health of the
community.
There are 3 major types of needs in the
community.
 1) Felt Needs
 2) Observed/Perceived Needs
 3) Expressed Needs
 1) Felt Needs- This implies what people feel
are their greatest or biggest problems.
 These are things in the people’s lives. (living
conditions, ways of doing things, beliefs etc
that they feel if dealt with, will help them to
be healthy.
 2) Observed/Perceived Needs: These are
needs, problems and constraints identified by
the health workers as those that can have
negative impact on the community.
 3) Expressed Needs: These are needs,
problems and constraints on which health
workers and/or community has taken some
measures of actions which may or may not
have adequately addressed the health
issue(s)
C) Situation Analysis
 It is a comprehensive review and assessment
of the community/District/LGA in other to
determine or come into conclusion about the
situation of the communities which may have
direct or indirect impact on the health of the
people.
Objectives of Community Diagnosis
 - to determine what information needed to
assess the community.
- to select and use appropriate tools to collect
information or use available data.
- to plan and coordinate activities with other
members of the team.
- to evaluate data and determine health need
priorities of the community
uses of Community Diagnosis in Community
Health/Primary Health Care
 - It provides for decision on whether to plan
strategy for program, the type of intervention
and on which target group it will be applied.
- It provides basis for determining what
resources will be needed for an intervention
program.
- It provide baseline fur future measurement
of changes in community health problems.
- A descriptive community diagnosis can be
used to show occurrence or distribution of
selected diseases or health indicators
An analytic community diagnosis can:
 a) identify groups needing care.
b) determine causal factors of diseases in the
community.
c) determine attributes that can be risk
markers for vulnerable groups of individuals in
the community.
d) identify community syndromes e.g.
malnutrition which can be a community
syndrome in poor areas, hypertension,
coronary heart disease which may be
community syndrome in affluent communities.
Principles that govern community
diagnosis
 1. The most effective way to improve the
overall health status of the community is
through enhanced community based services
organized around Primary Health Care model
2. Comprehensive community health needs
assessment that provides baseline data is pre
requisite to the development of a long term
community effort to improve the health status
of people living in the community.
Roles of Community Diagnosis in
Community Health
- It identifies needs used as basis for planning.
- It identifies problems thereby leading to self
reliance.
- It identifies constraints which can then be
addressed in the planning process.
- It provides a baseline for evaluation of
intervention
Rationale for Community Diagnosis
 It provides realistic information specific to a
community for which definite relevant plans
are made, in order to solve the problems
using identified resources, in a culturally
acceptable
manner.
Methods used in Community Diagnosis
 - Observation
- Interviews/Surveys
- Group discussion (focus group discussion)
- Review of existing records in the community
clinics/ health centres
- Screening of specific problems
Types of Data to be collected in
Community Diagnosis
 In assessing the community so as to
determine factors (health, economic and
environmental) that can affect health of the
community the following data will be collected
 A. Demographic Data
 B. Health Problems in the Community
 C. Diseases
 D. Health Facilities
 E. Nutrition Status
 F. Environmental Aspect of the Community
 G. Resources for Health and Social Welfare
 H. Customs/Heritage
 I. Leadership
 J. The Community
Steps in Conducting Community
Diagnosis
 1. Identify boundaries of the community.
2. Make a map of the community showing the
boundaries, landmarks that is major. Roads,
rivers and markets, important land marks and
settlements.
3. Make a list of resources available in terms
of industries, markets, churches, mosque,
health care facilities personal organizations
e.g. transportation, Non- governmental
organizations. (NGO’S)
 4. Find out about cultural practices and attitudes
affecting health, that is those that are useful or
harm less or harmful.
5. Describe the social customs and important
festivals of the community.
6. Find out the major economic activities of the
community.
7. Perform an interview survey of the community by:
a) Conducting focus group discussion. (note: focus group
discussion is a group discussion that gathers together people
from similar back grounds or experiences to discuss specific
topic of interest).
b) developing a survey instrument using suitable questionnaires
or oral questions.
 8. Pretesting the instrument on colleagues or
some members of the community.
9. Revise the instruments taking into account
information gathered during the pretesting.
 10. Have group discussion with health staff
and with community about sample survey
 11. Train interviewers and validate the result
of their data.
 12. Carry out interviews of the sample chosen
using appropriate sampling techniques.
 13. Analyze data, summarize.
14. Write report.
15. Give feedback to the community and
other health workers.
16. Discuss the report with the health workers.
17. Plan for discussion with the community
 This is done in collaboration with the
community
Plan for Situation Analysis
 1. Situation analysis is conducted usually on
the health services provided to determine the
ability of health services to respond to
problems found during community diagnosis.
 2. Types of information gathered during
situation analysis
 3. Role of Situation Analysis
 4. Instruments used for Situation Analysis

House Hold Questionnaire, Child questionnaire

female questionnaire
 5. Plan for Situation Analysis
1. Contact the local Government Area
2. Obtain instruments from (FMOH, SMOH, and
NPCHDA)
3. Train interviewers
4. Conduct situation analysis by collecting
information on the
 • Local Government Area population by
district and age.
• Health facility by type, location and
ownership
• Health personnel by type & location
• School population by type and location
• Socio economics status
• Public utilities and service
 • Local government Primary Health Care (PHC)
activities
• Local government area logistics and
information supports
5. Collate data from the field
6. Write report