The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #68748

Thomas C. Quade, MA, MPH, Akron City Health Department, 177 South Broadway, Akron, OH 44308, 330-375-2988 ext 3510, quadeto@ci.akron.oh.us and Donna R. Skoda, Director of Community Health Programs, Summit County Health Department, 1100 Graham Road Circle, Stow, OH 44224.

Summit County, Ohio, has a history of collaboration in community assessment. Healthy Summit 2010 (HS2010), a collaborative effort led by the three local health departments, is in its second iteration. Increased resources expanded the scope of the project dramatically from that of its parent, Healthy Summit 2000. Much of these additional resources result from the partnership of HS2010 with a concurrent assessment of the social services delivery system and quality of life (QOL) conducted by County Government. In addition to maintaining a consistent core set of data describing demographic, health, and social issues, HS2010 provides data support for local health and social service agencies and collaboratives. When HS2010 accepted a data support role for the QOL assessment, an effort was made to find commonalities between the data needs of multiple partners with varying agendas both within the QOL group and between that group and other preexisting HS2010 data consumers. The QOL group consists of the leadership of the county’s social service agencies as well as some private partners. The primary interests of the QOL group could be generally categorized into the following: economic, education and employment, housing, health, safety, physical environment, behavior and lifestyle, and vulnerable populations. The process of compiling a list that addressed diverse issues while maintaining enough focus on each was challenging. This presentation will describe the process of paring down a mass list of more than 100 indicators to a manageable set intended to describe the status of health and social well being in Summit County.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the attendees will be able to:
• Discuss challenges faced in meeting the data needs of multiple partners in large collaborative assessments,
• Describe a cooperative method of working with multiple partners to compromise in meeting collective data needs,
• Identify indicators that satisfactorily meet broad-spectrum community assessment needs.

Keywords: Community Health Assessment, Indicators

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.