Public Health Informatics and Information Systems - Essay Example

Needs assessment Question A After selecting a group of twenty-five college from VA a number of data collection techniques are employed to determine their Health Related Quality of Life. Some of the most basic data collection methods employed included the use of questionnaires, which offered a draft overview of the subjects’ mental and physical health. The questions in the questionnaire are both open and closed ended. The closed ended questions are those that require either a Yes or NO type of answers, or any question requiring an answer that is influenced by the query asked by the interviewer. These are used to inquire any ailments that the subjects are highly susceptible to and those that they have suffered from in the near past. These types of questions will also help determine the common causes or reasons that the subjects give for suffering such diseases. For effective evaluation of the mental health of the subjects, the open-ended types of questions in the questionnaire are used. The state of mental health is only determined through the analysis of one’s ability to reason. The open-ended questions are thus meant to trigger the subjects to try to apply as much of their reasoning ability as is possible. It is through the answers that the subjects give that their mental state is established. Examples of both open and closed ended questions found in the questionnaire include: Would you say that in general your health is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor? This is an example of a closed ended question. An open-ended question that will solicit thinking and reasoning and an example would be: During the past 30 days, for about how many days did poor physical or mental health keep you from doing your usual activities such as self-care, work, or recreation? A part from the use of questionnaire, the research also employs the use of observation. The subjects’ physical and mental healths are observed through very keen observation of the number of visits they pay to health facility for the entire research period. The interaction of the subjects with their peers is also of interest, as this will help establish how the Health Related Quality of Life that one has affects their social well-being. The test of the mental state of the subject is best studied through the observation of the interaction pattern exhibited by the subjects. There are those who tend to withdraw while some will always try to harm their peers in the course of their interactions (O'Carroll 55). Additionally, interviews are also some of the best ways of determining responses that if analyzed will establish some of the objectives of the study. Just like questionnaires, interviews are also two thronged; structured and unstructured. Structured interviews have properly formulated questions that are asked one after another. These interviews may be guided by the questionnaires that are formulated prior to the interview. This type of interviews is effective in determining the physical health of the subjects while unstructured interviews, which include impromptu questions thrown at the interviewee, are very effective in determining the reasoning abilities of the subjects. The results of the study are later analyzed in a number of ways to ascertain the findings of the research. Numerical data are statistically computed so that the pattern of occurrence of a disease is determined alongside its prevalence. In this statistical computation, some of the calculated figures include the mean number of physically, mental and overall unhealthy days for the sample by subgroups. The result of these calculations will establish the most common days of the months when school going teenagers suffer certain ailments that will be categorized as both physical and mental. Alongside these will be the most common of these ailments suffered by the subject and how the environment affect the prevalence of either a mental or a physical disorder (O'Carroll 172). Question B. The findings from the research were as bellow: Sex physical unhealthy days mentally unhealthy days total unhealthy days M 4 5 9 F 4 3 7 M 2 5 7 F 4 2 6 M 3 5 8 F 5 4 9 M 2 4 6 F mean 2.125 3.001 7.645 M mean 4.2242 4.825 8.565 Overall mean 3.952 4.002 8.025 Comparison of the local findings Mean number of unhealthy days in females in the sample vs. the state estimate for female unhealthy days. Infections arising from periodical infections and communicable diseases have affected students in school for a long time, an occurrence that attracted the state. Several researches carried out revealed an average of 16 unhealthy days for an average of 27% of female students in the last ten years. The study’s finding vary greatly with these findings, this is attributable to factors that affect the prevalence and occurrence of infections among the schoolchildren. The findings of the research indicated that most of the subjects suffer from mental fatigue towards weekends. During these periods, the students anticipate the weekend and the weeklong academic engagement would have gotten the better of them. They thus long for the rest and break associated with weekends. The average unhealthy days as determined by the findings of the research were Thursdays and Fridays. Such findings are attributable to the type of works that students engage in while at school and the activities they engage in over the weekends. After the hectic coverage of the curriculum, students need some time to refresh. Most of the students, especially the juniors and freshmen, are still less engaged with their academic work. They thus begin anticipating for the weekend quite early. Some other factors that affect the prevalence of mental state of the student include states of their families. Stable secure families are more holistic and parents offer their children motivation to concentrate more in schoolwork and thus limit the instances of the children suffering from mental fatigue. The students suffer severe mental fatigues in weeks closer to month ends. They show disinterest in schoolwork and have very little to anticipate the weekend for too. At such times, the school days have progressed substantially and they thus have more academic work to concentrate on. Despite all these, there is minimal money to sustain the entertainment of the weekends. This is a factor that easily drives most of the students to depression as they try to engage their minds on both the increasingly hectic academic work and the financial needs. At these time, most families are hard pressed thus they allocate their children very little upkeep money if not none at all. Physical health has many disparities. From the observations, most of the students in the study suffered more from accidents during play and lifestyle related complication. There was no apparent prevalence pattern to these. Teachers take a lot of caution especially when engaging the students on co-curriculum activities. Despite all these precautions, accidents still occur in the playground especially with the students who engage in physically engaging games such as baseball and football. The lifestyle diseases that the students suffered frequently included asthma and obesity. These complications affect the concentrations of the students in their academic work. The obese face stereotypical judgments and the time spent in the gymnasiums do not allow them adequate academic time. The asthmatics have to keep watch on their condition at the expense of their studies. These ailments do not have any day related pattern to their occurrences. Work Cited O'Carroll, Patrick W. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems. New York: Springer, 2002. Read More