I learned a lot about Boone County from Community and Population Health and the Genetics and Genomics Course. I learned that I live in a vibrant community that is healthy in many ways a community should be. I also learned that when one digs a bit deeper, there are many statistics that show how physically unhealthy many communites are, including Boone County, Indiana. I gained valuable experience in creating a nursing care plan on a community level. I used the knowledge gained in the course material to help formulate community diagnosis and plan of action to help reduce the effects of disease in my community.

The health concern I decided to focus on for my field project is Smoking Prevention in Boone County, Indiana. As a result of my Community Health Assessment for VWT 1 I found that the three most common chronic conditions leading to death in Boone County are related to cancer (lung, prostate, breast, and colorectal), heart disease and Alzheimer’s (Ali-George, 2014). All of these health concerns have been linked to smoking in some way. In Boone County approximately 17% of adults consider themselves daily smokers.

When using epidemiology to assess the health of Boone County it was clear that Cancer and Heart Disease are the main health risks. In 2012, there were 728 live births, 484 deaths; of those deaths 107 were cancer related and 158 were related to heart disease, which accounted for a total of 54.8% of deaths in Boone County. In 2013, there were 726 live births, 534 deaths; of those deaths 114 were cancer related and 177 were related to heart disease, which accounted for a total of 54.5% of the deaths in Boone County (Vital Statistics, 2013).

As I began working with key community figures, I realized that there were many undiagnosed community issues other than the typical smoking, drinking and obesity. I never expected to find out that Boone County has one of the highest rates of heroin use in Indiana. I stuck with smoking prevention as my topic, but had I spoken with these people before the project began, I may have changed the direction of my paper to focus on the prevention of heroin use. I also began to understand that people genuinely want to stop smoking and need more education, funding and advocation to stop.

The American Musuem of Natural History in Genetics and Genomics Course was very rewarding and informational.  It helped me to better understand different methods are used by scientists to treate different diseases. I also learned that genetics plays a big role in a lot of diseases and cannot simply be cured by common treatment or antibiotics when genetics are involved. I will take this information with me as I practice nursing and continue to study how genetics may affect my patients and the diseases I encounter.