The purpose of this paper is to provide an opportunity to utilize Essay

The purpose of this paper is to provide an opportunity to utilize community assessment strategies, uncover a community health pr - Essay Example While only a tip of the iceberg is reported, a significant disease burden goes unnoticed. This paper seeks to assess, identify and highlight on community specific healthcare problems in one of the communities, in the US. A unique highlight is given to the community of Georgetown, one of the oldest cities in South Carolina and the headquarters of Georgetown County is seated at Winyah Bay situated at the confluence of three beautiful rivers. The community is a business hub as it hosts a sea gateway second business in the State of South Carolina. Georgetown city is moderately populated with a total population of less than ten thousand people with a population a density of 1,276/sq mi according to 2010 census report. The community is predominated by Black or African Americans, forming 56.7% of the population while the second largest race is whites (U.S. Census Bureau). Other races such as American Indian, Alaska Natives, Asians and Native Hawaiian make about 1% of the entire population. Appreciable proportion (over 80%) of the community has received formal education up to high school while less than 21% of people aged 25 years and above have received university higher education. The region has per capita income of less than $20, and about 23.2% of the population is below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau). Teenagers (less than 18 years) represent a bigger proportion (about 27.1%) of the total population compared to adults (about 14.7%). Female persons are also the majority representing more than half of the entire population (U.S. Census Bureau). Majority of the youths in Georgetown are unemployed accounting for 13.3% of the population and, therefore, do not have easy access to medical care (U.S. Census Bureau). The high rate of unemployment subject them to risk behaviors such as drug and substance abuse, crime, and risk sexual behavior among others. These behaviors expose the youths to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancies. The communi ty had 22 and 113 reported cases of gonorrhea and Chlamydia, as the common etiologies of STDs in 2010. Nationally, in the same year there were 110million reported cases of cumulative STIs with Human Papilloma Virus as the leading pathogen (Satterwhite, 2013). Although Georgetown is ranked below the top ten in HIV infection rates among South Carolina States there, is still a significant HIV infections rate among the youths in this community. About half of the new reported HIV infections are acquired through homosexual behavior while heterosexuality accounts for 40% of all cases. Majority of these new cases were reported in African American at a rate eight times higher than in whites. This difference could be explained by social economic differences between the two races (South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council, 2009). A teenage pregnancy is rated at 30% among teenagers in this community, with most of them giving birth of their firstborns at an age less than 20 years (South Carolina Campaign: to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2010). There was a drop in U.S teen pregnancies reported (Ventura, Abma, Mosher, & Henshaw, 2009), which was attributed to by a reduction in sexual activeness among the youths, as well as effective use of birth control measures. In contrast teen pregnancies are an existing threat to teen health in Georgetown the drop in cases