 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Patricia Gail Bray, PhD, Karen J Williams, PhD, Jane Peranteau, PhD, and Ilana Reisz, MA. Community Health Assessment, St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities, 6221 Main Street, Houston, TX 77030, 713-807-0752, pbray@sleh.com
St. Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities (SLEHC), a public health charity, and The University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH) developed a web-based Community Health Information System (CHIS) that includes ten years of population data and vital statistics. Users can track geocoded public health information at multiple levels of analysis, including neighborhoods and census tracts. Last year, SLEHC and UTSPH partnered with The United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast to develop a web-based community resource database to complement the CHIS. This paper will feature the highlights of that process. Community health assessments must include assets of communities as well as deficits. This is especially true for assessments that inform grant making for charities that need to build on the strengths of the community through funding. Through our partnership with UTSPH and United Way, we designed a web-based interactive Community Resource Database. This comprehensive database includes over 5,100 social service agencies and programs in a 13-county area of southeast Texas. Since the database is interactive, users can select the geographic area of interest and identify in a map or report format all of the social service agencies in that area. Future plans include an interactive layering process so that users will be able to view simultaneously public health needs as well as available resources for a select community. Regional public health planners and policy makers can benefit from knowing about the design of this process and our experience with trying to reach a variety of target audiences.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Needs Assessment, Health Information Systems
Related Web page: www.slehc.org
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities and The University of Texas School of Public Health and The United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employee of St. Lukes; Grant maker for UTSPH and the United Way