PH 334 Community Nutrition

Course Description:
This course provides students with a sound knowledge of common issues in community nutrition as it relates to the situation in the Pacific, and the skills to identify problems and address them. The practical component of the course provides hands-on experience in the analysis of existing data sets to identify trends in nutritional health in a particular community and to examine the surveillance system that is in place, the planning and implementation of an intervention strategy to promote and sustain health and prevent diseases amongst nutritionally vulnerable groups, and the evaluation of the likely impact of the intervention, its practicality, and sustainability.

• Prerequisite Courses: SC 112 or PH 231

A. PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES (PLOS):
The student will be able to:

1. Recognize, describe and discuss and research about the basic principles and practices of the specialty.
2. List, discuss and demonstrate the essential public health functions or the specialty and its interrelationships with the other specialties and health disciplines at community and national levels.
3. Describe, discuss and research adult, children and family health issues at community level.
4. Discuss and demonstrate an understanding and practice of the specialty public health competencies.
5. Demonstrate proper public health skills for its practice in the community as a national specialty practitioner.
6. Discuss and demonstrate community and cultural sensitivity in the health care environment.
7. Describe, discuss and research the health determinants and problems of adults, children and families.
8. Demonstrate proper cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid techniques and other healing and patient care abilities.
9. Demonstrate the ability and discuss how to conduct a community diagnosis and need assessment of the health determinants of the specialty in a community.
10. Identify and demonstrate good practice in the specialty
11. Have had management, planning experience and leadership role at a public health specialty at community and national levels.

B. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (SLOS) - GENERAL
The student will be able to:

1. Define “Community Nutrition”, describe the scope of activities therein and explain the role of nutrition in primary health care.
2. Discuss the benefits of integrating nutrition activities into the broader framework of primary health care, and of coordinating activities with the community health team.
3. Conduct a “pilot” nutritional assessment, classify the nutritional status of a community, identify possible nutrition promotion approaches, and determine which interventions would most likely be successful in the selected community.
4. Design intervention activities (including appropriate information, education and communication (IEC) materials and an evaluation strategy), for at least one nutrition issue affecting vulnerable groups and related nutrition surveillance components.

I = Introduced
D = Demonstrated
M = Mastered

C. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (SLOS) – SPECIFIC
The student will be able to:

General SLO 1: Define "community nutrition", describe the scope of activities therein and explain the role of nutrition in primary health care.

General SLO 2: Discuss the benefits of integrating nutrition activities into the broader framework of primary health care, and of coordinating activities within community health team.

General SLO 3: Conduct a "pilot" nutritional assessment, classify the nutritional status of the community, identify possible nutrition promotion approaches, and determine which interventions would most likely be successful in the selected community.

General SLO 4: Design at least one activity, for implementation at community level, that would address at least one specific nutrition issue and prepare relevant Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) materials, such as posters, brochures, flyers, etc., especially focused and targeted to clearly identified nutritionally vulnerable groups, and set up simple nutrition surveillance patterns to monitor compliance and outcome

D. COURSE CONTENT

1. Introduction to Nutrition
2. Implications for Community Nutrition Professionals
3. Art and Science of Community Nutrition
4. Seamless Health Care System
5. Community Nutrition Across the Lifecycle
6. Achieving Effective Community Nutrition Programs
7. Developing Community Nutrition Program
8. Evaluating Nutrition Programs
E. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
1. Lectures: in-class lectures
2. Group discussions and exercise on the critical review of the research methods, findings and evidence from selected samples of clinical studies.
3. Eventual field assessment of the nutrition status of a community.

F. REQUIRED TEXT AND COURSE MATERIALS
Poland PD., Green LW., Rootman I. (2000). Settings for health promotion: Linking theory and practice (1st ed.). London, England: Sage Publications Inc. (or most recent edition)

G. REFERENCE MATERIALS
Badcock J., et al. (1990). Developing community nutrition programmes, (1st ed.). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. (or most recent edition)
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (2006). Community Nutrition: Nutrition materials for healthcare workers in resource-poor areas, (1st ed.). St Albans, Hertfordshire: Teaching Aids at Low Cost (TALC). (or most recent edition)

H. INSTRUCTIONAL COST
none

I. EVALUATION
None

J. CREDIT BY EXAMINATION
None