| A | B |
|---|
| Aggregrate | Population or defined group |
| Change agent | Nursing role that facilitates in client or agency behavior to more readily achieve goals. |
| Community | People and the relationships that emerge among them as they develop and use in common some agencies and institutions and a physical environment. |
| Community assessment | Process of critically thinking about the community and getting to know and understand the community as a client. Assessments help identify community needs, clarify problems, and identify strengths and resources. |
| Community health | Meeting collective needs by identifying problems and managing interactions within the community and larger society. It is the goal of community-oriented practice. |
| Community health strength | Resources available to meet a community health need. |
| Community health problem | Actual or potential difficulties within a target population with identifiable causes and consequences in the environment |
| Community partnership | Collaborative decision making process participated in by community members and professionals |
| Confidentiality | Information kept private, such as between health care provider and client |
| Database | Collection of gathered and generated data |
| Data collection | The process of acquiring existing information or developing new information |
| Data gathering | The process of obtaining existing, readily available data |
| Goals | The end or terminal point toward which intervention efforts are directed |
| Informant interviews | Directed conversation with selected members of a community about community members or groups and events: a direct method of assessment |
| Interdependent | The involvement among different groups or organizations within the community that are mutually reliant upon each other |
| Objectives | A precise behavioral statement of the achievement that will accomplish partial or total realization of a goal; includes the date by which the achievement is expected to be completed. |
| Partnership | A relationship between individuals, groups, or organizations in which the parties are working together to achieve a joint goal. |
| Setting for practice | The community |
| Target of practice | Population group for whom healthful change is sought |
| Windshield surveys | A community assessment, the motorized equivalent of a physical assessment for an individual; Looking through the car windshield as the community health nurse drives through the community collecting data. |
| Agent | Causative factor invading a susceptible host through an environment favorable to produce disease, such as a biologic or chemical agent |
| Epidemiology | Study of the distribution and factors that determine health-related states or events in a population, and the use of this information to control health problems |
| Host | Human or animal that provides adequate living conditions for any given infectious agent |
| Determinants | Factors that influence the risk for or distribution of health outcomes |
| Distribution | Pattern of a health outcome in a population |
| Cohort study | An epidemiologic study design in which subjects without an outcome of interest are classified according to past or present (or futrue) exposures or characteristics and followed over time to observe and compare the rates of a particular health outcome in the various exposure groups |
| Causality | The determination based on evidence or reasoning process that an event or state resulted from or was caused by some other events, exposure, characteristics, or a combination of them |
| Validity | The accuracy of a test or measurement |
| Web of causality | Complex interrelations of factors interacting with each other to influence the risk for or distribution of health outcomes |
| Primary prevention | A type of intervention that seeks to promote health and prevent disease from developing |
| Secondary prevention | Intervention that seeks to detect disease early in its progression before clinical signs and symptoms become apparent in order to make an early diagnosis and begin treatment |
| Tertiary prevention | Intervention that begins once the disease is obvious; the aim is to interrupt the course of the disease, reduce the amount of disability that might occur, and begin rehabilitation |
| Screening | Application of a test to people who are as yet asymptomatic for the purpose of classifying them with respect to their likelihood of having a particular disease |
| Epidemic | A rate of disease clearly in excess of the usual or expected frequency in that population |
| Bias | A systematic error due to the way a study is designed, how it was carried out, or some factors related to the variable(s) being studied |
| Risk | The probability of some event or outcome within a specified period of time |
| Secular trends | Long-term patterns of morbidity or mortality |
| Surveillance | Systematic and ongoing observation and collection of data concerning disease occurrence in order to describe phenomena and detect changes in frequency or distribution |
| Incidence rate | The frequency or rate of new cases of an outcome in a population; provides an estimate of the risk of disease in that population over the period of observation |
| Reliability | Refers to the precision of a measuring instrument, specifically its consistency from one time of use to another and its accuracy |
