The primary purpose of any public health program is summarized in three fundamental functions, which are assessment, development of policies, and assurance. A community health assessment aims to provide information that will aid in the identification of both assets and problems as well as in the formulation of policies, their implementation, and their evaluation. The assessments also help in the measurement of the effectiveness with which a public health system is fulfilling its duty of assurance. Hence, the conduction of the community health assessment in the Don Mills Collegiate Institute purposes at identifying the primary health problem there, which is critical to the formulation of strategies to counter the identified problem.
One of the most significant steps in the conduction of a health assessment is the collection of data. The quality of the data used directly influences the validity and reliability of the information produced. Consequently, it is imperative to use appropriate data collection methods. Hence, two data collection methods were deemed the most appropriate and these were interviews with various stakeholders, and a windshield or walking survey. Twenty-one people in total were interviewed during the data collection process with each interviewee being a stakeholder with a significant role in the community.
During the interview, a lot of information was obtained from the respondents with this information aiding in the identification of the community’s social determinants of health. The first determinant identified was income and social status. From the interviews, it became evident that most people in the area were immigrants who were of a low and middle-class status and held low-income jobs, which necessitated their working two jobs to make ends meet. This situation had an impact on the mental health of both the parents and their children.
For the children, their parents working two jobs meant that they were usually unavailable in the evenings and could not talk to their children who were stressed out by their academics. With no one to talk to, the children ended up very stressed, which could lead to depression and other mental conditions. For the parents, working two jobs meant leading a very stressing life, which affected their mental health. Additionally, the low wages they earned from these jobs meant that a parent who lost his or her job would suffer severe financial constraints leading to stress and other mental health issues. Loss of employment also affected the mental health of the students because they suffered from stress resulting from the knowledge that their parents were incapable of providing for them.
The second determinant identified was the culture of the community. The Don Mills Collegiate Institute was a multicultural institution with the students there drawn from different communities. However, a significant proportion of the students came from a South Asian or an Indian background. The cultural background of these students influenced their perception of mental health issues, with the children from South Asian backgrounds expressing a reluctance to open up about their mental health problems. This reluctance sparked from the fear of stigmatization because, in their culture, mental health issues are an embarrassing phenomenon. Additionally, in this culture, most people perceived stress as a normal part of life as opposed to being a mental health problem.
The third determinant identified was the personal health practices among the student community. Some individual practices had an adverse influence on the mental health of these students with video game addiction being the primary one followed by substance abuse. Many students were obsessed with video games spending most of their time after school playing these games to an extent that they forgot to do their homework and even ended up missing school. This unhealthy addiction was a potential mental health issue, which many parents did not seem to recognize since they thought it was just children enjoying themselves. Substance abuse, on the other hand, was a practice many students adopted as a way of dealing with mental health issues such as stress. However, instead of providing a solution, this abuse only served to compound the mental health problems.
Another determinant identified was education and in this case, this referred to the accessibility of education about mental health issues. In the school, it was observed that most students had insufficient basic knowledge about mental health issues such as the causes, types, and methods of management of mental health problems. The schoolteachers too appeared not to have enough information about how to identify students suffering from mental health problems. The insufficiency of information resulted from the absence of enough forums that discussed mental health concerns. At Don Mills Collegiate, for example, the vice principal admitted that the only time any awareness about mental health issues took place was during the mental health week, thus highlighting the deficiency of knowledge on the subject.
Whereas the assessment took place at the Don Mills Collegiate Institute with the students being the target community, the findings are also generalizable to the wider community of Donway East Ward 34. The first determinant of the mental health of the students was the income and social status. Most students interviewed indicated that they came from homes where the parents held two jobs hence they hardly ever saw each other. This phenomenon was not unique to the parents of students at this school and instead it was the norm for members of the community there to hold two jobs. Most adults from the immigrant communities were employed in the factories where they worked 8-hour shifts and received very low wages. Since these wages were insufficient to meet their needs, they had to get second jobs to supplement their income. Consequently, the mental health problems that afflicted the parents of the Don Mills students applied to them.
The second determinant relates to culture, and this applied to all residents not only those from the South Asian communities. Across many cultures, mental health issues are viewed as embarrassing and hence they are seldom addressed because the victims are reluctant to see specialists even when they suspect the existence of these problems. Many people fear of facing discrimination from the society hence they prefer to keep such matters quiet, which ends up exacerbating the problems. Hence, this determinant also applies to the community as a whole. Video game addiction and substance abuse are also issues that face young people across several cross-cultural dimensions. In the absence of other avenues of releasing stress, young people resort to abusing drugs, which may only worsen their situation.
Education also applied to the wider community with most members similarly ignorant about mental health issues. The ignorance could not be attributed to literacy levels because most of the immigrant community spoke English although most spoke it as a second language. However, mental health awareness programs were lacking and most people did not even know where they should go for counseling in case they manifested with a mental health problem.
Some potential recommendations to address the problems identified include.
Conclusively, the community health assessment aimed at the identification of the health concerns of the Don Mills Collegiate Institute. With mental health issues identified as the primary concern, it was imperative to examine the social determinants of health that affected the community in the area. These factors were identified as income and social status, personal health practices, and culture. The report then examined the linkage between these factors and mental health before proposing recommendations that if implemented will help to mitigate the effect of these determinants thus improving mental health outcomes.
References
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