|
Useful Definitions
- Community:
- Community is a population which shares certain interests and affinities.
- Community Health:
- Community Health is the process of involving the community in improving its own health. It is a less specific concept than either Public Health or Population Health.
- Community Health Research:
- Community Health Research will include any systematic enquiry conducted wholly or partly in the community for the purpose of acquiring new knowledge.
- Community Health Services:
- Community Health Services are those services provided in the home or community [i.e. not within institutions] which are designed to improve the health of a defined group of people.
Ideally, these services are based on an estimation of needs and equitable resource allocation. They include formal public health services, community-sponsored and community-focused health promotion, protection, preventive and rehabilitative services and programs provided by health coalitions.
- Ethics
- Ethics is the process of determining what values presently underlie, and what values ought to guide decisions and discussions in community research.
- Health:
- Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. [W.H.O.]
- Health Gain:
- Health Gain is a measured improvement in the health of a population.
- Health Information (as defined in the Health Information Act):
- Individually identifying diagnostic, treatment and care information or individually identifying registration information or both.
- Participatory Research:
- Participatory Research involves openly and directly those affected by the issue under study, with a view to action which is based on improved knowledge.
- Population Health:
- Population Health refers to
- the measured health of a defined population, or
- description and quantification of the determinants of health, or
- efforts to change health or its determinants
- Public Health:
- Public Health is the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organized community action. The health of the population is its foremost consideration; the resources of the community are fully utilized; the practice guidelines are pre-set, and progress towards defined objectives is continuously monitored.
Public Health is the process of mobilizing local, regional, national and international resources to assure conditions in which people can be healthy. It follows a clear set of principles, one of which is that it is based on a foundation of sound biological, sociological and epidemiological research.
- Public Health Services:
- Public Health Services are those services which are provided in accord with public health principles.
- Research (as defined in the Health Information Act):
- academic, applied or scientific health-related research that necessitates the use of individually identifying diagnostic, treatment and care information or individually identifying registration information.
- Subjects of Research
- The Subjects of Research include all persons or communities who are the focus of a researcher's inquiry. Ethics review is necessary when the collection and the use of information could deprive communities or human subjects of their dignity or jeopardize their individual physical or mental well-being. Persons studied on the basis of information that is already public are not deemed to be research participants for the purposes of this policy.
|
