Exercises - PH 423: Assessing Community Assets & Capacity

In addition to a variety of learning activities, there are 3 instructor-evaluated activities associated with PH 423: (1) complete the individual exercise; (2) participate in a multi-learner conferencing exercise; and (3) complete and submit the assessment quiz. Each of these is explained below.


Learning Activities (Note: these ARE NOT to be submitted!)

A series of individual learning exercises for this module are provided below. Completing these exercises will familiarize you with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that relate to the competency expectation for this module that is described above. Note that learners are not required to submit written response for these learning exercises. Completing these exercises, however, will prepare you for components of this module that are assessed and scored.

  1. Review the basic content for PH 423, which is provided in several online resources:
  2. Review the Community Tool Box's Understanding and Describing the Community. What are some of the ways in which community is defined? Identify the most commonly used and least commonly used definitions of community in public health data.
  3. What are the implications of community definition for public health practice?
  4. Review the Community tool Box's Identifying Community Assets and Resources. Social Capital is an ill defined, but increasingly useful construct in public health. It is sometime used synonymously with community capacity. The question is capacity for what? Please address this question from a public health perspective.
  5. Read and consider the following measures from the state public health performance standards and then describe how this resource standard and series of questions measures organizational effectiveness: "Does the state public health system (SPHS) share system-wide resources to implement health education and promotion services? If so, does the SPHS:
  6. Tabletop application of the national public health performance standards; choose one essential public health service and work through applying that set of model standards to your jurisdiction. What issues arose as you worked on this exercise?
  7. Application of national standards: Who should be involved? How will you develop your collective thinking about system achievements versus public health agency contributions to that system? How will you use the glossary and other tools throughout the process?

Evaluated Activities (Note: these ARE to be submitted!)

(1) Individual Exercise

Each learner will submit a brief response to the following exercise. Produce your response on a separate document to be uploaded at the "Submit Assignments" link. Please use "PH 423 Individual Exercises" as the title of your submission.

Select an area of about four contiguous blocks in an urban or rural community but do not provide the name of the area in your response. Walk or drive around this area and consider what you see in this space, using the following as a guide for content.

Consider the time of day and duration of your tour, as well as any relevant weather conditions. Be aware of potential hazards and always put your personal safety first. Select a time of day most suitable to observe and be as inconspicuous as possible. In no more than 300 words relate your observations to the capacity of this "community" related to the health of its residents.

(2) Conferencing Exercise

Add your contributions to this multi-learner conferencing exercise after reviewing any available submissions by other learners. Produce your response on a separate document to be uploaded at the "Submit Assignments" link. Please use "PH 423 Conferencing Exercises" as the title of your submission.

Visit the Chicago Department of Health Web site or IPLAN and select a community area of interest to you. What do the data tell you about community assets or capacity? What level of health problems or assets are being measured here?

(3) Assessment Quiz

Follow the LearningSpace link to the Assessment Quiz. You may be asked for your login ID and password to access the quiz through your Preparedness Center Personal Page. Complete the quiz and submit your responses. You make take the quiz several times.

Course Evaluation: All learners are asked to electronically complete a Course Evaluation Questionnaire; this is available to you as an electronic form and will be transmitted to a data base without your identity being known, and your instructor will have no way to link your identity to your comments. Before participating in these course evaluation activities, students should review the specific learning objectives established for this course (and others you may have taken as part of this series); these are available in the Syllabus. Evaluation of the course should focus on the extent to which these objectives were achieved.


PH 423 Exercises last revised July 5, 2005 (dkapadia)