NSG3PHN Pre Clinical Assessment For Community Profile

This report is a community profile of City of Banyule.  The term community profile can be described as the comprehensive description of the requirements of the population and represents the characteristic, features or components of a community.  The purpose of this assignment is to develop a community report for City of Banyule where the clinical placement will be established.  It covers the physical characteristics of the community, health specific services and organizations, community demographics and other community institutions and organizations.   At the end of this report, some conclusions have been drawn explaining the possible weaknesses and strengths   of the community health. Following are the details of the clinical placement.

Name of clinical placement organisation – Austin Health

PHN role – Community Nurse

Community Selected: City of Banyule

Community Description

The City of Banyule has a diverse community consisting of over 118,000 residents. The population living in Banyule is expected to remain stable and healthy for the next decade. However, over the period of time, the population of time, the population of Banyule is expected to age which means that the percentage of population over and above the age group of 60 years will significantly increase. Major portion of the residents of Banyule are employed in the community and health services finance, wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, business services and property, personal and recreational services. Also, a greater proportion of the workforce of Banyule consists of the local residents (Banyule City Council, 2018). 

Physical characteristics

The City of Banyule is situated in the north eastern suburbs of Melbourne between 7 and 21 kilometers from the Melbourne CBD.  City of Banyule has been established as a residential area with significant parklands and open spaces especially along Plenty River Valleys and Yarra.  Along the south border of the City, the Yarra River runs while the west border of the city is defined by Darebin Cabin.  There are institutions and industrial areas in Greensborough/ Briar Hill, Heidelberg West and Bundoora. There are institutions such as Simpson Army Barracks ad Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre (Daly, Speedy & Jackson, 2017).

Since the community is situated along the river, it is supposed to be affected by the environmental problems caused by the river. The rivers are polluted which also contained the dumped waste and therefore deteriorate the health of the community (Daly, Speedy & Jackson, 2017).

Community demographics

The community profile of the City of Benyule provides that the estimated resident population for the year 2017 was 129,125 having the population density of 20.66 persons per hectare.  The resident population of the City of Benyule as per Census for the year 2016 was 121,865, surviving in 50,223 dwellings having an average household size of 2.54 (Banyule City Council, 2018).  48.6 % of the population consists of males and 51.4% of the population consists of females (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018).

The proportion of pre- schoolers and newborns aged 0- 4 years 6.5% of the total population. The younger population between the age group of 5- 49 years is approximately 58.8 % of the total population.  39 years is the higher median population age (Banyule City Council, 2018). Moreover, 34.7 % of the population consists of the older population over and above the age of 50 years. The characteristics of the community describe the way in which the City of Banyule meets their needs (Melican & White, 2017).  Therefore the community requires clinical assistance as the median age is 39 years. After this age, the community is prone to disease and medical assistance and their health starts to deteriorate (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015).

Relevant community history

The history of the City of Banyule provides that it was established after the Indigenous Australian term “Banyool” or Banyule and was originally the locality’s name within the former City of Heidelberg. The name was before the adoption of the name as that of the new Council during the period of the amalgamation of the areas of local government in Victoria.  The merger of the City of Heidelberg with Shires of Eltham and Diamond Valley resulted in the formation of the City of Banyule in December 1994 (Victorian Electoral Commission, 2018).

The inhabitation of the land of the City of Banyule is recognized by the local Indigenous people, the Wurundjeri william. The understanding of the past of the region comprise of the major indigenous community contributions, traditional names and sacred sites (McMurray & Clendon, 2015).      

Health specific services/ organizations

The residents of the City of Banyule are provided a number of health specific services. Immunisation Services are provided with the help of which the parents receive letters from Medicare or Centrelink which notifies them that the vaccines of their child are overdue. Enough information is provided through these letters which can effectively resolve their issues (Banyule City Council, 2018).  Furthermore, the Environmental Health Officers of the City of Banyule respond to the complaints made by the public regarding alleged poor cleanliness or food handling, food poisoning, and food found to contain foreign object. The development of the food recalls have also taken place for the purpose of assisting the businesses in responding towards the incidences of food which are identified to be risky and unsafe for the consumer safety (Banyule Business, 2018).

Such services work for the purpose of improving the community health and are very helpful in maintaining stable health of the residents. When the vaccines will be used for preventing the child from diseases, the disease will not affect their health in the future. Furthermore, the food related complaints will also be dealt in time such that further any issues are not created which affect the health of the residents of Banyule (Happell, Stanton, Hoey & Scott, 2014).        

Other community institutions/ organizations

Banyule city council also plays an important role in the health and well- being of the public. In the year 2015, the Victorian Health and Wellbeing Plan 2015- 2019 was released by the Victorian Government along with highlighting the improvement in the health and well- being of the Victorians as the key priority. It makes a lot of difference by way of positively influencing the public for improving their health and well- being. The parks and open spaces maintained by the council are enjoyed by all the members of the community and utilized for exercising, playing, socializing and enjoying natural environment thereby increasing the health and wellbeing (Browne, Davern & Giles- Corti, 2017).      

Obvious community strengths or weaknesses related to specific social determinants

Employment constitutes an important social determinant of health which provides how various jobs along with the threat of unemployment affect the health of the worker. The unemployment rate of Banyule is 4.4 %. Moreover, the employed population of Banyule that work as professionals or managers is 4.0 % (Dunphy,  Winland- Brown, Porter & Thomas, 2015). This can be regarded as the strength of the community that the unemployment rates are low so les people are deprived of the healthcare services. Furthermore, majority of the residents are employed in social assistance and healthcare services which will act as a benefit during the establishment of the clinical placement.  Low unemployment rates further determines that there is higher job security and is therefore a strength of the community (Rubin, 2016).

The community residing in the City of Benyule has a higher proportion of residents (56.0 %) of the age 15 years and above that have completed successfully completed Year 12 or equivalent. 27.2 % have also completed a Bachelor or Higher degree. Therefore, lack of higher education is the weakness of the community. This means that this is the weakness for the community and can also result in serious threat as only half of the population have completed their education till Year 12 (Victoria State Government, 2018). Moreover, a very small percentage of population have completed their graduation which makes them incompetent for job. Also, they are considered to be ineligible for higher positions in the job. Lower positions means low salaries which leads to the incapability of meeting the health needs and availing healthcare services properly (Garg, Boynton- Jarrett & Dworkin, 2016).

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that the City of Banyule has a diverse community consisting of over 118,000 residents. The community profile of City of Banyule provided the characteristic, features or components of a community. The report focused on the physical characteristics of the community, health specific services and organizations, community demographics and other community institutions and organizations.   At the end of this report, some conclusions have been drawn explaining the possible weaknesses and strengths of the community health.

A number of health services are also offered to the community such as immunization services, Medicare services and services of the Banyule City Council play an important role in the health of the residents. Lower unemployment rate is the strength of the community and lower levels of education is the weakness of the community. 

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). 2016 Census QuickStats. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/LGA20660

Banyule Business. (2018). What can we help you with today?. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://banyulebusiness.com.au/

Banyule City Council. (2018). Immunisation Services. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://www.banyule.vic.gov.au/Services/Public-Health-for-Residents/Immunisation-Services

Banyule City Council. (2018). LGA Profile. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://www.fpv.org.au/assets/resources/04_banyule.pdf 

Browne, G. R., Davern, M., & Giles-Corti, B. (2017). What evidence is being used to inform municipal strategic planning for health and wellbeing? Victoria, Australia, a case study. Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice, 13(3), 401-416.

Daly, J., Speedy, S., & Jackson, D. (2017). Contexts of nursing: An introduction. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Dunphy, L. M., Winland-Brown, J., Porter, B., & Thomas, D. (2015). Primary care: Art and science of advanced practice nursing. FA Davis.

Garg, A., Boynton-Jarrett, R., & Dworkin, P. H. (2016). Avoiding the unintended consequences of screening for social determinants of health. Jama, 316(8), 813-814.

Happell, B., Stanton, R., Hoey, W., & Scott, D. (2014). Cardiometabolic health nursing to improve health and primary care access in community mental health consumers: baseline physical health outcomes from a randomised controlled trial. Issues in mental health nursing, 35(2), 114-121.

McMurray, A., & Clendon, J. (2015). Community Health and Wellness-E-book: Primary Health Care in Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences..

Melican, T., & White, S. (2017). Tom melican: Mayor, banyule city council. Planning News, 43(6), 16.

Rubin, I. L. (2016). Social Determinants of Health. In Health Care for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities across the Lifespan (pp. 1919-1932). Springer, Cham.

Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing-e-book: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Victoria State Government. (2018). Early Childhood Community Profiles. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/research/Pages/reportdataec.aspx

Victorian Electoral Commission. (2018). Banyule City Council profile. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/ElectoralBoundaries/BanyuleProfile.html