1. Barriers to a healthy lifestyle that face various vulnerable populations in the society as addressed by Community health Nurses.
A healthy lifestyle is one of the most desirable things that every country, state, community or society strives to achieve in each and every undertakings that happen within it. This is the reason why most societies across the globe emphasize on teaching related courses in school which include sustainable environmental studies and activities, health and hygiene, conservation among others, and this is based on the fact that health and hygiene go together, and their quality within a society is one of the factors that determine the society’s development and sustenance (Allender, 2009, p. 14). Nurses are among the very vocal group of people that work hard to improve a society’s health, and from the varied number of people to whom they offer their services; they have over time been able to identify various vulnerable populations especially those in areas affected by various catastrophes. Some of these include people living in affected areas such as places affected by floods, droughts and natural aspects such as earthquakes which leave people homeless. This is the example that we will focus on in this paper. Overcoming such barriers will include factors and activities such as educating the people likely to be affected on how to react in the event of such occurrences, for example moving to safer settlement areas (Stanhope, 2009, p. 81).
2. Priorities to be addressed by CHN as per the victim population’s needs.
Picking one vulnerable population out of the few given examples, some of the people most affected by lack of healthy lifestyle in the modern society include people in third world countries who have settlement problems. These victims have a number of priorities which include acquiring of basic and emergency resources such as medicine and other emergency needs, improvement of their living conditions and lastly and most importantly, conservation. In such a case, a Community Health Nurse’s priority in such a population is to first supply these people with some of these necessities (Clark, 2007, p. 122). Secondly, educating them on how to preserve the environment in which they live especially in the rural areas, from depletion of the available resources is also a priority because they might not be in a position to know how to use them and lastly another important priority would include treating them off the diseases that they might have had as a result of not having these amenities and facilities in their living areas, for example as a result of the large proximity between these amenities’ source and their areas of residence (Nies, 2010, p. 56).
References
Allender, J. (2009). Community Health Nursing: Promoting and Protecting the Public's Health: Community health nursing (Allender). New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Clark, M. (2007). Community Health Nursing: Advocacy for Population Health (5th Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Nies, M. (2010). Community/Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Health of Populations. London: Saunders Press.
Stanhope, M. (2009). Foundations of Nursing in the Community: Community-Oriented Practice. New Orleans: Mosby.
