Health Indices based on Primary Survey
The goal of the second community exposure in the first year of medical school is to gather primary data. These data are necessary to validate the secondary data gathered from the last exposure and to give a clearer picture of the health status of the community. Thus, two days after arriving at our assigned barangay, Venus, the group immediately decided to start with the house-to-house visits and survey.
The first few days of the survey and home visits were quite slow since the group was still adjusting with the dialect and the survey questions. However, as the days passed by, we were able to survey around 30 houses per day, twice in number compared when we were still adjusting. After two weeks of survey, the group was able to cover 91% of the total number of households in the community. There are 323 actual number of households, while the group was able to survey 294 households in the community which comprises of 90 households in Purok Mars, 109 households in Purok Jupiter and 95 households in Purok Uranus.
Based on the conducted survey, there are still several houses with no good toilet facilities and without water supply (lack faucet in their homes). We found out that waste disposal is also a perceived problem since the dump truck did not have a regular collection schedule in the barangay. Sometimes, their garbage are being collected only once a month. Thus, the residents would result to different methods of disposing their garbage which would include burning and throwing at a nearby canal.
Furthermore, there are still identified cases (morbidity and mortality) of Tuberculosis in the community despite the 100% cure rate from the secondary data gathered. Hypertension was also prevalent in the community. There were younger people with elevated blood pressure readings. We found out that people who were diagnosed with Hypertension were not compliant with their maintenance medications. In order to diagnose those people with high blood pressure readings, the group conducted three consecutive days of blood pressure takings. The final BP taking was held during the community assembly along with blood glucose checking. At the end of the activity, the group was able to identify 95 hypertensive individuals (including those who are Pre-hypertensives) and their names were submitted to the District Hospital and Barangay Health Station for record-keeping and acquisition of free maintenance medications.
Since we only covered 91% of the total households in the community, there are problems which we had based on the secondary data since they are considered more reliable due to the barangay health station's monthly updated records. Based on the secondary data, we found out that the percentage of fully-immunized children was 46% and 74% in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Both percentages did not reach the national target of 95% coverage of fully-immunized children. The contraceptive prevalence rate for modern family planning method was also low with 13% and 33% in the years 2014 and 2016, respectively. This did not reach the national target of 54%. Furthermore, the prevalence of stunting among 0-70 months old children was high with 35% in 2013, 40% in 2014, 23% in 2015 and 24% in the first quarter of 2016. This exceeded the national target of 21.5%. The prevalence of underweight and severely underweight 0-70 months children was also high with 22% in 2014 yet decreased in 2015 at 14%. However, both percentages still exceeded the national target of 12.7%.
With the surveys (primary data), secondary data, interviews, and community assembly, the group was able to identify problems in the community. These are the following (not in order):
- Water Supply
- Waste Management
- Tuberculosis
- Hypertension
- Malnutrition
- Low percentage of Fully-Immunized Children and Contraceptive Prevalence Rate
In the coming years of our medical career, we hope to find solutions to these problems hand-in-hand with the community.
Article by: Junneth Macansantos
