Transforming Community Assessment: The Healthy South Carolina Initiative

With funding from the CDC Community Transformation Grant, the Healthy South Carolina Initiative (HSCI) is a new statewide program that focuses on the implementation of evidence based policy and environmental interventions addressing nutrition, physical activity, and tobacco use. The HSCI is a collaborative led by the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) in partnership with Eat Smart Move More SC, the SC Tobacco Collaborative, the Medical University of South Carolina's Outpatient Quality Improvement Network (OQUIN), and the USC Arnold School of Public Health. The initiative provides funding and other resources to community organizations throughout the state. To promote coordinated efforts at the local level, the HSCI collaborative calls for community organizations to work together and submit one project proposal for each county and builds elements of the Mobilizing for Planning and Partnerships community assessment framework into the deliverables of the county-level projects. However, the community and workforce were not prepared to carry out community assessment activities at such a large scale. The partners leveraged the continuing education, technical assistance, and community of practice resources of the Arnold School's SC Public Health Training Center to develop the capacity of community members, DHEC staff, and college students to carry out the assessment activities across South Carolina.