Community Social Work in Health: Goals and Strategic Orientations

Diversity of Goals in Community Health Social Work

There is a huge diversity of goals in community social work within the health field. These goals range significantly. For example, one goal might be organizing a community to accept and manage an illness suffered by some of its members who are stigmatized, helping them build community ties and create a social space where they can interact (as in the case of HIV). Another goal might be organizing the population to eradicate diseases affecting the community due to the use of polluted water.

Goals for Community Social Work in the Health Field

Globalization, in its most amiable forms (tourism and travel) and in its most cruel forms (migration flows moving millions of people in precarious conditions), has spread health risks. Consequently, old and new diseases occur in developed societies, developing societies, and those mired in poverty and social disintegration. In advanced countries, diseases associated with increased longevity, such as Alzheimer's, affect a growing number of people. At the same time, diseases once believed to have been eradicated are being re-diagnosed, and in less developed countries, pandemics like HIV expand with great virulence. From the perspective of community social work in the field of health, we can differentiate the following general goals:

1. Develop a map of diseases of the area in which the project is to be developed.
2. Develop a map of available resources, distinguishing between public and private institutions and those available to community members (including their traditional food patterns, health practices, cultural resources, etc.).
3. Establish a set of preventive strategies that are easily assimilated by the population, seeking to alter, with the agreement of all participants, those behavior patterns that involve a higher health risk.
4. Establish communication mechanisms that allow the participation of the community so that the diagnosis can become a shared self-assessment by as many people as possible.

Orientations for Community Social Work in the Health Field

Working in multidisciplinary teams, always necessary, is particularly crucial in the field of health. The social worker should collaborate with health experts and experts in other fields such as engineering or architecture. Aspects related to the use of drinking water or the adoption of proper guidelines for food preparation are essential to improve the living conditions of a specific community. We can note the following guidelines for social workers in this field: