Deck 5: Program Planning and Needs Assessment

Question 1

Describe the processes of environmental scanning and trend analysis.

Answer 1

Processes of environmental scanning and trend analysis:
Environmental scanning is acquiring information regarding events, relationship, and trends of organization's external environment. This knowledge assists management in planning future of organization's course of action. The major goal of scanning is collecting data, information, and knowledge that enable action. Environmental scanning is a part of strategic process of planning. The environmental scan identifies information requirements, accuracy of information, and using the same for decision making.
Environment scanning remains as a tool for collection of data used for designing health programs of tailored specific communities. Contextual factors inhibit or facilitate individual and overall community health as important aspect of comprehensive need assessment. It is specifically truly marginalized population amongst many health groups under varied environmental conditions.
Similarly environmental scan might examine the broad economic, social, political, and technological problems. Information collected from different sources and pioneer thinkers interpret information that develops variety of upcoming scenarios. Here, there are only single standard methods that conduct environmental scanning.
C identified four scanning modes inclusive of undirected view, enact, condition view, and search.
• The view mode is passive but enacts and searches modes active purposefully.
• Undirected viewing notices certain general characteristics or fluctuations in an environment through information seeking that are informal mechanics.
• The conditioned viewing is value and belief that drives specific characteristics of a routine environment of information seeking mechanics.
• Enacting is exploring certain issues through testing and experimentation of gaining a tacit knowledge.
• Searching is discovering complete information of formal information seeking mechanisms.
Analyze trends that allow anticipated changes recognizing implications taking an effective action. Trend is general direction, tendency, or predictable sequential events. F in 2008 summarizes six steps in trend analysis. They are:
• Location and gathering sources is done regarding trend information like national newspaper, local newspaper, internet, television, and magazines.
• Identification of relevant articles, trend information, and notes that are taken.
• Categorization articles, trend information, and broad categories like notes, like health, economics, education, scientific research, and local events.
• Removing items believe that are not likely for impacting occupation therapy practice.
• Sort articles, notes of two groups, trend information, are likely to contribute positive impact over negative impact on community related to occupations therapy practices.
• Predicting probable future based trends that are discovered.

Question 2

Define the key steps in community health/health promotion program development.

Answer 2

Key steps in community and health promotion program development:
Program planning is described as the process of priorities establishments, diagnosis of problem causes, and allocation of resources for achieving objectives. The following are the major health care program promoting stages:
Preplanning or Exploration:
• Identification of the state of problem and target population
• Identification of present information in reference to the issue in concern
• Assessment of internal and external resource and barriers
• Determination of goals approaches, and needs assessment
Needs Assessment or gathering data and analysing it:
• Collection of relevant data
• Analysing and synthesizing required data
• Determination of priority
• Identification and evaluation of alternate solutions
• Formulation of a perfect action plan
Program planning:
• Establishing goals and objectives
• Development of intervening details, strategies, procedures, and time lines.
• Development of evaluation plan
• Pretesting materials and procedures
Program implementation:
• Implementation and offering program and services
Program evaluation:
• Monitoring and evaluating program processes, impacts, and the finally derived output.
Sustainability planning:
• Identification of future funding sources
• Building up the community capacity
• Cultivation of supportive relations
Dissemination plan:
• Sharing results of stakeholders, peers, and clientele.

Question 3

Describe three sources of data for needs assessments.

Answer 3

Three sources of data related to need assessment:
Need assessment is most regular system of collecting, assembling, analyzing, and disseminating information on health of community. This is designed are prioritized issues and facilitating development interventions for addressing community concerns. Additionally, identification of needs the process also finds available resources in a specific population, discovers factors contributing identification of problem, establishing priorities, and devising criteria of interventions that address need. Hence, needs assessment leads for clear program goals and objectives.
The most important need assessment process is gathering accurate and comprehensive information for making particular decision for best resources of resolution of high priority needs.
• A key informant is persons who typically are formal or informal leaders with knowledge regarding phenomena of interest.
• Secondary data is archival data is an existing data that are collected by agencies for other purposes.
• Group processes aside from surveys most regularly used methods that are collected qualitative data in respect to need assessment.

Question 4

Identify four factors that impact the selection of needs assessment strategies.

Question 5

Demonstrate understanding of the role of health behavior theories in community health/health promotion program planning.

Question 6

Define "goal" and "objective."

Question 7

Develop program objectives.

Question 8

Describe the five levels of the ecological approach to community health/health promotion programs.

Question 9

Develop implementation strategies at the different levels of intervention.

Question 10

Identify the purposes for each of the three levels of program evaluation.