| Course | NURS 4212 Population Health Nursing |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 4 |
| Paper type | Community assessment section |
| Length | About 800 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 4212 Week 4
Community Assessment, Part 2: Health Indicators for Portsmouth and Scioto County, Ohio
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 4212: Population Health Nursing
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Community Assessment, Part 2: Health Indicators for Portsmouth and Scioto County, Ohio
The demographics section described Scioto County as older, poorer and more often disabled than Ohio as a whole. This section asks whether those differences show up in health. It focuses on Portsmouth, the county seat and only city, home to about 18,250 of the county's residents, and sets its figures beside the county, the state and the nation.
Indicator Table
The indicators come from five public sources, each named in the table's source column. City and county prevalence figures for chronic disease, behaviors and access are model-based estimates from the PLACES project, drawn from its county file (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2025a) and its place file (CDC, 2025b). State figures and national benchmarks for the same measures come from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (CDC, 2026). Heart disease mortality comes from the CDC county mortality file for adults 35 and older (CDC, 2025c). Drug poisoning death rates come from National Center for Health Statistics files for counties (National Center for Health Statistics [NCHS], 2023) and states (NCHS, 2020), and teen birth rates from its county file (NCHS, 2022a) and state trend file (NCHS, 2022b). The most recent year with comparable figures at every level was used for each row, which is why the years differ.
Table 1
Health Indicators for Portsmouth, Scioto County, Ohio and the United States
| Indicator | Portsmouth | Scioto County | Ohio | U.S. | Worse than state? | Source, year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mortality | ||||||
| Heart disease deaths, adults 35+, per 100,000 (age-adjusted) | n/a | 549.7 | 380.8 | 325.7 | Yes | CDC (2025c), 2019-2021 |
| Drug poisoning deaths per 100,000 (age-adjusted) | n/a | 59.6 | 35.9 | 20.7 | Yes | NCHS (2023, 2020), 2018 |
| Chronic disease, adults (%) | ||||||
| High blood pressure | 45.2 | 43.6 | 37.2 | 34.0 | Yes | CDC (2025a, 2025b, 2026), 2023 |
| Diagnosed diabetes | 17.3 | 15.3 | 13.2 | 11.8 | Yes | Same |
| Coronary heart disease | 10.1 | 9.0 | 5.0 | 4.0 | Yes | Same |
| COPD | 14.1 | 11.4 | 7.9 | 6.3 | Yes | Same |
| Depression | 31.7 | 29.3 | 25.0 | 21.8 | Yes | Same |
| Health behaviors, adults (%) | ||||||
| Current cigarette smoking | 24.3 | 20.8 | 15.0 | 12.1 | Yes | Same |
| Obesity | 47.4 | 44.7 | 36.4 | 34.4 | Yes | Same |
| No leisure-time physical activity | 40.9 | 35.9 | 26.4 | 24.5 | Yes | Same |
| Binge drinking | 12.9 | 14.0 | 15.6 | 15.1 | No | Same |
| Access to care (%) | ||||||
| No health insurance, ages 18-64 | 11.5 | 9.5 | 7.8 | 9.3 | Yes | Same |
| Routine checkup in past year | 80.6 | 80.9 | 79.7 | 78.4 | No | Same |
| Maternal and child health | ||||||
| Births per 1,000 females aged 15-19 | n/a | 31.9 | 18.8 | 16.7 | Yes | NCHS (2022a, 2022b), 2019 |
Note. Portsmouth and Scioto County prevalence figures are PLACES model-based crude estimates for 2023; Ohio figures are direct Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System estimates, and U.S. figures are the median of states. Model-based and direct survey estimates are produced differently and are not strictly comparable, and PLACES estimates reflect statewide and demographic patterns rather than measured local change (Greenlund et al., 2022). City-level mortality and birth rates are not published; n/a = not available. The county drug poisoning rate is a model-based estimate.
Where Portsmouth and Scioto County Fare Worst
Heart disease mortality. The county's age-adjusted rate of heart disease death among adults 35 and older, 549.7 per 100,000, is about 44% above Ohio's and nearly 70% above the national rate. Because the rate is age-adjusted, the county's older population does not explain the gap. This is the largest difference in the table that rests on counted deaths rather than modeled estimates, and it is large enough to matter.
Smoking, obesity and inactivity. Portsmouth's estimated smoking rate of 24.3% is about nine points above Ohio's, and nearly half of its adults are estimated to have obesity. Four in ten report no leisure-time physical activity. Each gap is wider than the confidence interval around the city estimate; for smoking, the city interval runs from 21.6% to 27.2%, entirely above the state figure. These three behaviors share causes with the county's heart disease and diabetes burden, which suggests the figures describe one pattern rather than several separate problems.
Teen births. The county's teen birth rate in 2019 was 31.9 per 1,000, 70% above Ohio's rate, with a confidence interval of 28.4 to 35.7 that stays well above the state figure. This gap is large, based on counted births, and relevant to nursing practice in schools and prenatal care.
Some differences are small enough to be noise. The county's binge drinking and routine checkup estimates sit close to the state figures, and their differences fall within the models' uncertainty. The uninsured rate for Portsmouth, 11.5%, is higher than the state's, but the gap between model-based and survey estimates makes it a weak signal on its own.
Candidate Priority Problems
The indicators suggest four candidate problems for ranking in a later section: cardiovascular disease and its shared risk behaviors, especially smoking; diabetes; overdose deaths, which the Week 2 analysis showed have fallen but remain well above state levels; and teen births.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025a). PLACES: Local data for better health, county data, 2025 release [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/swc5-untb
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025b). PLACES: Local data for better health, place data, 2025 release [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/eav7-hnsx
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025c). Heart disease mortality data among US adults (35+) by state/territory and county, 2019-2021 [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/55yu-xksw
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026). Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) prevalence data (2011 to present) [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/dttw-5yxu
Greenlund, K. J., Lu, H., Wang, Y., Matthews, K. A., LeClercq, J. M., Lee, B., & Carlson, S. A. (2022). PLACES: Local data for better health. Preventing Chronic Disease, 19, Article 210459. https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd19.210459
National Center for Health Statistics. (2020). NCHS: Drug poisoning mortality by state: United States [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/44rk-q6r2
National Center for Health Statistics. (2022a). NCHS: Teen birth rates for age group 15-19 in the United States by county [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/3h58-x6cd
National Center for Health Statistics. (2022b). NCHS: U.S. and state trends on teen births [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/y268-sna3
National Center for Health Statistics. (2023). NCHS: Drug poisoning mortality by county: United States [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/d/rpvx-m2md
NURS 4212 Week 4 instructions, in plain terms
The fourth week of NURS 4212 typically calls for the health indicators section of a community assessment. You choose indicators across mortality, morbidity, behavior and access, report each with source and year, compare with the state, identify the worst areas and list candidate problems. Faculty mark selection, sourcing and interpretation. Cite County Health Rankings, CDC PLACES and state data in APA 7. A direction marker or comparison column helps readers. Ranking problems usually comes in a later week. Data sources should be current and credible. NURS 4212 faculty want indicators covering mortality, morbidity, behavior and access, each with source, year and comparison. Name where the community fares worst. List candidate problems.
How this NURS 4212 Week 4 example is built
One large table carries the section, grouped into five blocks: mortality, chronic disease, health behaviors, access to care, and maternal and child health. Each row gives the city's value, the state value, a national benchmark and a direction marker, with a source column naming where the figure came from. National Center for Health Statistics and CDC mortality files supply county-level death rates, CDC PLACES supplies city-level model-based estimates built on BRFSS survey responses, and vital statistics supply the birth outcomes. The table note explains why estimates from different sources are not always directly comparable. Beneath the table, three paragraphs discuss the indicators where the city fares worst, each noting whether the gap is large enough to matter or small enough to be noise. A closing sentence lists candidate priority problems for later ranking.
Where the marks sit in the NURS 4212 Week 4 rubric
Indicator sections are marked on selection, sourcing and interpretation. Selection credit rewards a set of measures broad enough to cover mortality, morbidity, behavior and access, and five labeled blocks make that breadth obvious. Sourcing credit is steep in this week because instructors check figures, and a source column with year and level for every row answers the check before it is made. Interpretation is where the example stands apart, since it asks whether a difference is meaningful instead of treating every unfavorable number as a problem. Losses cluster around mixing geographic levels without saying so, citing a ranking website without noting which underlying survey produced the figure, and presenting indicators with no benchmark at all, which leaves the reader unable to judge anything. A table carrying no note on data years is another quiet loss.
Common NURS 4212 Week 4 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Indicator sections lose selection credit when they cover only one area, such as mortality. Include morbidity, behaviors and access. Another common gap is figures without year or source. Add both. Writers also list indicators without saying where the community fares worst. Name the worst gaps. Avoid ranking problems before the method week. Use a consistent comparison. Note small-number instability for rare events. Close with the candidate problems. Writers also forget tract-level differences within the county, which can hide a city's worse figures. Look at Portsmouth separately. Another frequent slip is mixing years across indicators without saying so. Note the years. Check that the direction markers match the numbers.
Get a NURS 4212 Week 4 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 4 instructions, the rubric and the community your assessment covers, and the indicators section comes back benchmarked for that place, each figure traced to a named source. No charge for the first sample, returned inside 24-48 hours, the table built to your template's headings and the benchmarks chosen to match your section's instructions.
More NURS 4212 papers and BSN samples
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NURS 4212 Week 4 questions, answered
Which data sources count as acceptable for this section?
Primary public sources are safest: County Health Rankings, CDC PLACES, state vital statistics, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and state health department dashboards. Journal articles can support interpretation but rarely supply local figures. Your rubric may list required sources, and when it does, the custom sample draws from those first and cites each at the level it reports.
What does the direction marker in the example mean?
It records whether the city's value is better, worse or similar compared with the state, based on the figures in the same row. The discussion paragraphs then decide which of the worse values are meaningful. A marker is a convenience, not a statistical test, and the example says so in its table note to avoid overstating small differences.
Do I need to rank the problems in this section?
Usually not. Most templates list candidate problems here and rank them in a later week using a priority method. The example stops at the list for that reason. If your section combines indicators and priority setting, the sample adds a ranking step and names the method used, so the choice can be defended.
Where can I find a free NURS 4212 Week 4 sample paper?
The Portsmouth health indicators section is printed here with the indicator table, the worst areas and the candidate priority problems.
Which indicators does the NURS 4212 Week 4 table cover?
Mortality, morbidity, behaviors and access, such as life expectancy, diabetes, smoking, overdose deaths and provider ratios.