Congregational Health Assessments: Identifying Congregation Health Priorities to Enhance Academic-Community Partnerships

Background: Black churches have traditionally played a significant role in the African American community. Increasingly, African American churches are recognized as an important setting for health interventions and research by researchers and health professionals. We describe the process of developing and implementing a Congregational Health Assessment (CHA) to elicit the health priorities of church members. Methods: The Data Collection/Data Distribution Center (DC2) network includes 18 Black churches with a commitment to community-academic collaborations that benefit African American communities. After endorsement from DC2 church leadership, church liaisons were trained to collect data using the self-administered written assessment with adult congregants. Results: Fifteen churches participated in the CHA. Collectively, 1,326 congregants across the churches completed the CHA. Pastors and church liaisons facilitated the implementation at their churches. Variations in implementation process at each site are described. Individualized CHA reports were compiled and delivered to each participating church. Reports identify general demographics, health priorities of congregation members and their family members, and perceived community problems. Desired health information and preferred method of dissemination are also reported. Priority health areas include: hypertension, arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease. Conclusion: Church-academic partnership must address the health priorities of congregations. The CHA provides a means of working with churches to identify health priorities so that future research can be responsive to congregational needs, thus increasing congregant participation, enhancing health ministries, and building synergistic community-academic partnerships.