Understanding of Community Diagnosis among Bachelor of Public Health Students, Major in Public Health

Abstract

Background and Aims: Community health assessment is a vital process that reveals the structure of actual problems and responds to community needs through participatory learning. This leads to root cause analysis and sustainable projects. Community diagnosis serves as a foundation for understanding the context of population, economy, society, and environment to identify health problems accurately. This study aim to investigate the understanding of community diagnosis among Bachelor of Public Health students. The findings will be used to plan the development of teaching methods and student competencies.

Methodology: This study used mixed methods research design. The target group consisted of fourth-year public health students at Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University under the Royal Patronage, enrolled in the Community Health Development course during the first semester of the 2025 academic year. The research tool was a test on community diagnosis containing 24 items: 20 multiple-choice questions and 4 subjective questions. The test utilized hypothetical situations to link various problems and scenarios. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis based on the students’ written responses.

Results: The results showed that students had an overall average score of 38.52 (SD = 12.56) out of 70. When considering a 60% passing criterion, only 48.70% of students passed the overall test. The average score for the subjective section (28.49) had a higher passing rate (54.78%) compared to the multiple-choice section. In-depth analysis revealed that most students could explain the steps of community diagnosis. However, there were limitations in distinguishing between outcome problems and risk factors. Some scoring for priority setting was inappropriate. Additionally, errors were found
in using arrows to show causal relationships in the Web of Causation, reflecting a lack of systems thinking in some groups.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that students still have incomplete understanding of certain community diagnosis processes. Specifically, skills in analyzing the links between social determinants of health and priority setting need improvement. These results are useful for designing future instruction to focus on developing analytical thinking skills and applying theory to practice effectively in real-world settings.