Windshield Survey Reflection

Jessica Hirschfeld

NUR/405

October 21, 2014

Helen Woolf

Windshield Survey and Reflection I the community I have chosen is Irvine, California, a city not too far from where I reside. This city is located in Orange County, California and is surrounded by cities: Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Tustin, and Lake Forest. A community is defined as a locality-based entity, composed of systems of formal organizations reflecting societal institutions, informal groups, and aggregates that are interdependent and whose function or expressed intent is to meet a wide variety of collective needs (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012). A community is a place where people connect and interact with each other, and community can be formed within churches, schools, workplace, and local businesses.
Community health is defined as "the meeting of collective needs by identifying problems and managing behaviors within the community itself and the relationship between the community and the larger society" (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012, p. 401). Community health does not only focus on the wellness of individuals, but it focuses on the community as a whole, community health strives to see improvement in the entire community. The community is essentially the client, and evaluations of the community are data derived from a collection of individual clients (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012). Nurses in the community manage and identify problems that affect the community as a whole, they focus on the common good of the community, which in turn changes individual’s behavior and health.
Windshield survey
In 2013, the Irvine community consisted of a population of 242,651 and according to the U.S. Census Bureau; Irvine is now the 91st largest city in the US (Demographics Information, 2014). The community appears polished and well kept, in the neighborhood yards are trimmed, and there are no signs of decay or an unmanaged property. Driving around the community there many people exercising, running and walking their dogs. There are a variety of churches in each neighborhood, consisting of different denominations and cultures. The community seems lively, and most shopping centers are filled and active.
The land area in square miles is 66.11, and there are 3,212.6 persons per square mile (Demographics Information, 2014). The average cost of living in Irvine is $622,500 for a Single Family, condominiums and new homes, and the average cost of rent is $1,832 (Demographics Information, 2014). Most people who live in Irvine can afford these costs of living due to the average income being $92,663 (Demographics Information, 2014). According to the city of Irvine (2014), there are 97% of their population are high school graduates, and 67% are college graduates. Transportation primarily consists of privately own automobiles, but there are bus routes and off-street bicycle trails that consist of 54 miles (Demographics Information, 2014). The community consist of a wide amount of open land and recreational parks, open space preservation areas consist of 5,600 acres, and there are 19 community parks, 39 neighborhood parks and 81 sport fields (Demographics Information, 2014).
Cultural Diversity
The communities cultural and diversity play an important role in recognizing the needs within the community. Community health nurses depend on the information of cultural diversity and vulnerable populations to assess the problems and manage behaviors. The primary culture within the community is white which consist of 45.7%, Asian 38.2%, Hispanic 9.8%, Black or African American 1.7%, and other 4.6% (Demographics Information, 2014). Based on the numbers it seems like Irvine is primarily White and Asian, there are areas and shopping centers that are submersed in the Asian language and do not fully speak English, which could create a language barrier. According to the Center for Disease Control (2013), cancer,