Identification of Needs and Resources to Improve Community Health for Basic Health Areas

The Health Department (Departament de Salut), together with the Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS) and Catsalut, provides health professionals with some indicators to help identify the needs and resources of a specific community or neighbourhood in order to be able to diagnose the community and plan the projects it requires.

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Description

Thanks to the joint efforts between the Departament de Salut de la Generalitat, AQuAS and Catsalut, the Basic Health Areas have a set of indicators to identify the needs and the required resources to improve health in neighbourhoods and communities.
These indicators (attached Excel document) allow the elaboration of a health report for a specific territory, so as to be able to perform a quantitative health diagnosis in a community or a neighbourhood. The table includes the following indicators:

-       Demographic
-       Socio-economic
-       Morbidity
-       Mortality
-       Lifestyle
-       Preventive practices
-       Resources and use of services
-       Physical environment

As well, this document enables data filtering and only displays indicators of a specific Basic Health Area. The data contained are classified by sexes and by the overall population in the area, but the data for the entire Catalonia is also available to be able to know its representation on the overall population.

Source of information:
Canal Salut [Internet]. Els equips d'atenció primària ja disposen d'un conjunt d'indicadors per fer el diagnòstic de salut de la seva comunitat; July 11, 2018 [query performed on August 26, 2018]. Available at http://canalsalut.gencat.cat/ca/actualitat/noticies/nota-premsa/?id=306388

Needs

-       To contribute to the improvement of the community's health.
-       To go beyond health problems, since their causes may have other origins.
-       To simplify decision-making when establishing intervention priorities in community health.
-       To provide tools and instruments that facilitate detection of the community's needs.
-       To improve health information.

Results

Employee satisfaction . There is only one source of information for the study of needs and resources.

Greater efficiency. Resources are assigned according to the needs of the community which is assisted. The projects carried out are the ones that the population really needs.

Increase in quality. Resources are assigned to the projects which the community needs.