Are Community Health Assessments still useful to the Healthcare Community?

Objectives: The purpose of the current study was to determine who was using the local community health assessment (CHA), desired future report indicators, and purposes for which the data was being used. Methods: Online survey that was emailed to all previous recipients of the community health assessment. The link to the survey was also placed on community health organization websites with an invitation for all to participate. Respondents were given a list of 82 health indicators and asked to indentify those that that they would like in a future report. Respondents were not required to answer all questions. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 182 surveys were collected over a 2-month period. Most respondents, 117 of 159 (73.6%), had used the previous CHAs. The two most common organizations using the data were private hospitals (41/167, 24.6%) and non-profit groups (32/167, 19.25%). The job title of the respondent was most commonly a chief executive officer (31/163, 19%), followed by physicians (17/163. 10.4%) program directors (16/163, 9.8%) and non-profit directors (16/163, 9.8%). Almost all indicators were requested by more than 50% of respondents. The most desired indicators were: Age (168/182), percent with obesity (156/182), percent with cholesterol checked (151/182), and percent satisfied with availability of care (149/182). Planning, policymaking, and grant applications were the most common reasons for using the reports. Conclusions: Community Health Assessments are used by a wide variety of healthcare organizations and individuals. The most common use is for planning purposes.