Contact a health professional in your community or in a neighboring community. Your local, county, or state health department can serve as a starting point to either make a contact or refer you to another health professional, and your Instructor can also be a resource to help you find a health professional to interview. You may also search the Community Guide for contacts.
Interview the health professional about local health programs that are available that address a health disparity in your community and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the programs.
Briefly describe at least two of the local health programs that are being used or that have been used in the past. Choose one program to focus on and determine the population that was primarily served by the program. Explain why you chose this program.
Ask about strengths and weaknesses of the programs to help guide your SWOT analysis.
Summarize the interview using the template provided.
You will be asked to include the health professional’s contact information on the assessment template.
Part#2
Use the Community Guide to locate an additional evidence-based program that is either similar to the one that you are focusing on or that addresses the same health disparity. Use the Resource Inventory as a guide.
Describe at least two similarities between the local health program and the evidence-based program from the literature.
Describe at least two differences between the local health program and the evidence-based program from the literature.
Part#3
A SWOT analysis is a tool used in gathering and identifying resources of a community, along with strengths and weaknesses of the environment. Such an analysis provides an organized and systematic way of gathering the information collected from a community. This, in turn, helps determine the areas of possible changes and explore new and alternative possibilities to solutions of issues within a community.
Review the resources that address SWOT analyses and perform a SWOT analysis on your local health program and vulnerable population. The Assessment Template contains general questions that can help you.
Part#4
Answer each of the reflection questions found in the Assessment Template. Each response should be 1–2 paragraphs in length and should follow APA guidelines.
Provide a summary of the information you found from your SWOT analysis of the local health program described in your health professional interview.
Explain the most evident strengths and weaknesses you discovered about this program and its ability to address the issue.
Explain how you can use the information from the SWOT analysis as a health professional in your community to mitigate health disparities.
