Health assessments have long been used by authorities in the health sector to identify key community health concerns, analyze and prioritize those concerns and execute a plan to address them. The success of a health assessment is greatly influenced by the skills and ability of the nurse or whichever health care provider is conducting the assessment as it determines the amount of information that those being assessed will be willing to reveal. Good and effective communication skills are therefore of great importance.
At the community level, health assessments focus on relationships among various organizations influencing health concerns in the community. These include National- Local government partnerships in the provision of health services, Public-Private partnerships within the community, and the involvement of schools and other private companies in the provision of health services. At the group level, assessment focuses on family, friends and other social networks that can be studied and their effect on health choices in the society looked into. The individual-level of assessment focuses on the person’s attitude, knowledge and skills and how they relate to the individual’s health and health choices (CDC, 2010).
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The process involved in conducting a comprehensive health assessment can be represented in diagrammatic format as seen in Diagram 1.
To ensure the assessment captures critical information about the health concerns of the population, the person conducting the assessment should involve all the relevant stakeholders at varying stages of the process to ensure they buy into the process and transfer the same confidence to those being assessed. If in a business setting, the HR department is highly involved to make the employees aware of the process and the benefits they stand to get from participating in the process. The more informed the participants the more receptive and open they will be in the process. The nurse or physician heading the process can also have a group chat with the population being studied before beginning the process where he/ she briefs them on what they are to expect during the process and allows them to ask a few questions. This makes them relaxed during the process and is likely to reveal more information freely which may be critical to the study ( Lundy, 2014).
Diagram 1. Pictorial representation of the Community Health Assessment Process.
When conducting a health assessment, the community or population to be assessed has to be analyzed and the characteristics used to determine what type of information and issues will be focused on in the assessment. A general health assessment will involve five stages; Physical Assessment, Nutrition Assessment, Self-Care Assessment, Mental Assessment, and analysis of results . (Lundy, 2014).
A health assessment was done for call center employees in India, “Health Issues Amongst Call Center Employees, An Emerging Occupational Group in India.” by Raja & Bhasin (2014). India was picked due to its global rise as a global center for Business Process Outsourcing especially Call Center Operations due to the availability of skilled and cheap labor. The assessment focused on the effects of call center work environment on the health and other health-related attributes such as lifestyle and these were then compared to those of non-BPO workers in the same industry, telecommunications. The main areas of focus were Physical and mental health of the employees, sleep quality, nutrition and other related habits and their social life.
It was found that stress levels were higher in BPO employees at 58.3% vs. 19.3% for non-BPO employees with 62.9% of them reporting being depressed within the past six months compared to 4.6% for non-BPO workers. Cases of physical ailments were also higher in BPO with most of the call center workers reporting backaches, headaches due to straining of the eyes, shoulder pain and even weight related problems. In the city of Mumbai, 70.4% females and 55.6% males reported suffering from headache on a near-daily basis. Most respondents in the BPO sector also proposed the need for distressing facilities such as gyms, counseling services and other indoor games reflecting the stressful work environment they face. (Raja & Bhasin 2014).
Sleep disorders were observed in 83% of call center employees against the telecoms industry average of 39.5%. Insomnia, chronic fatigue and general sleepiness were also reported with 51.4% reported being generally fatigued compared to 20.5% for non-BPO employees. Call center workers regularly on night shifts were also found to be at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases compared to their day shift colleagues. (Raja & Bhasin 2014).
The highly demanding work environment and irregular work times also saw the workers resort to unhealthy habits to release their stress with figures as high as 56% of the heavy smokers ( more than one pack of cigarettes a day) working in call centers. They were also more likely to be victims of poor nutrition habits with many skipping meals, over-indulging on junk food, while others reported excessive drinking of coffee to keep alert during their shifts. (Raja & Bhasin 2014).
Many call center employees also felt socially alienated from society and family due to the nocturnal work hours they are subjected to which makes them prefer sleeping the whole day while at home thus reducing interaction time with family and friends. In New Delhi, 90% of the employees were unable to have a healthy work-life balance with women being affected the most due to greater familial expectations (Raja & Bhasin 2014).
The Call Center industry is highly demanding with employees required to often do night shifts to meet times of people in other geographical regions, and also be able to converse in English without traditional accents means that most employees in the sector will be young, fresh graduates without much family responsibilities. This group is also expected to have a very cosmopolitan view of life to enable them relate to issues they may face in their line of work assisting customers from different corners of the world (Raja & Bhasin 2014). This population characteristic meant that the health concerns focused on were relevant to the lifestyle of the group. The use of a diagram to show the processes involved in a health assessment was also based on this population characteristic as the group due to their work environment would not be able to focus on many notes. The results were also kept to statistics more than narratives due to the ease of remembering numbers more than words.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC (2010). Community Health Assessment and Group Evaluation (CHANGE) Action Guide: Building a Foundation of Knowledge to Prioritize Community Needs. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dch/programs/healthycommunitiesprogram/tools/change/pdf/changeactionguide.pdf
Lundy, K. S. (2014).Community Health Nursing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers,
Raja, J. D., & Bhasin, S. K. (2014). Health Issues Amongst Call Center Employees, An Emerging Occupational Group in India. Indian Journal of Community Medicine : Official Publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine , 39 (3), 175–177. http://doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.137156
