CONCLUSION The nurse uses Community Diagnosis as a tool in the assessment of the community's health status. A,; a p Tofile, it describes the different factors that relate to existing health and illness patterns of the community and its people. These factors include Lhe demographic variables, socio-economic and cultural factors, environmental factors, health resources, political and leadership patterns found in the community. As a pro\;ess, community diagnosis involves the co]lcctio_n, collation, synthesis, analysis and interpretation of health data in order to define the diffe. rent community health nursing problems. Figure 4 illustrates this process. It is carried out with the active participation of community members with the specific purpose of bringing about change i11 order to improve the quality of life of the people. The three clisciplines of public health-demogrnpl1y, vital statistics and epidemio logy _ are utilized by the nurse in analyzing the factors that bring about ill health in the community. Demography helps the nurse understand the characteristics of the population in terms of its size, composition and distribution in space. It also makes it easy for her to define the focus of ca rein tcnns o(specific population groups. Vital statistics are indices of the health and illness status of the community. They serve as bases for planning, implemen ting, monitoring and evaluating community healtl1 nursing programs and services. The epidemiological approach is used by the nurse to explain probable ca uses ofhea Ith conditions as they occur in the comm unity. It consists of four phases descriptive, analytical, intervention 1md evaluation epidemiology. Descriptive epidemiology aims to descrioe the occurrence of health conditions in the community in terms of the atnibutes of the people (genetic make-up, demographi c characteristics and lifestyles), the pattern of time Lhe disease emerges and the characteristic of the place where the disease appeared. 11te nurse will then fommlate a hypothesis regarding the relationsl1ip hetween the exposure factors and the health or disease conditions under study. To prove the association between a suspected factor and disease, the hypothesis will undergo a systematic process of testing to prove that the risk of disc;. 1se is different for individuals whu are exposed or not exposed lo a factor. This is the second phase of the epidemiological approach ca Ued analytical epidemio logy where the nurse establishes a causal association between a dis~e and suspected risk factors present in the community. Analytic studies that are commonly used a. re cohort and c:ise-control sllldy designs. To test the strength of this association, risk estimates arc computed. The health problems and the factors that con LTibute d to these problems can now be presented using the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model that will be discussed in the ne)((: chapter. J. REFERENCES Anderson, ET and Mc Farlane, J. (2004). Community as Partner: Theory and Practice in Nursing. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. Philadelphia 2, ·neaglchole R, Bo11ita Rand Kjellstrorn T. (l993j Basic Epidemiology. World Health Organization. 3. Bennett FJ (Ed. ). (1979). Community Diagnosis and Health Actio11. A Manual for 1}opical and Rural Areas. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd. 199 