Public Health Nursing Assessment Tool - Additional Resources

This guide corresponds to the PHNAT contained in the appendix of Chapter 3 of the text Public Health Nursing: Practicing Population-Based Care text book (authored by Pace faculty Marie Londrigan and Sandy Lewenson).

We have attempted to provide links to information sources for those sections of the PHNAT in which secondary data is to be collected. For many sections of the PHNAT, you will be visiting the community and collecting primary or observational data. We hope these links are helpful in guiding you to the appropriate secondary data sources.

Before you begin your search for information on your community, you will want to consider some basic questions.  Specifically:

How will you define your community geographically? Are you researching a city, a town, a village, or some other type of location?  If you choose to investigate an area in New York City, you may want to look at a particular Community District (What is a Community District?). You should be aware that not all information is available for all geographic entities. In some cases, you may need to substitute county or state information for community information.

What levels of government have jurisdiction over your community? Most of the information that you will be using is collected by government agencies.  Although some information is collected by the federal (United States) government, you will need to use state and local government information as well. Early in your research, you should identify relevant government entities and locate their Websites.

This guide focuses on New York State and New York City. If you are assessing a city or town in another state, use similar resources listed in this guide, but based in that state or location. You can find many resources through a search engine such as Google or Bing.