Enhancing Community Benefit Activities through MAPP

Community collaboration, strategic alliances, advocacy, strategic coordination of resources, and public policy development are all components of a strategic approach to addressing health. The Healthy People 2020 framework provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. For three decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to: encourage collaborations across communities and sectors, empower individuals toward making informed health decisions, and measure the impact of prevention activities. Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) is a community-based strategic planning process that helps local public health systems set priorities and identify resources for addressing them. MAPP is unique in that it is driven by four different assessments that provide a comprehensive picture of the community's heath opportunities and challenges; a community-wide—rather than agency focused—effort to improve the public's health; and enables users to incorporate previous and current performance improvement efforts into the framework. During a MAPP process, communities conduct a community health assessment (CHA). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), requires that non-profit hospitals conduct and report on a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) every three years to maintain their tax exempt status. The CHNA must include a description of the assessment process, how input was obtained from the community and public health members, the community served, its health needs, which needs the organization intends to address, the reasons those needs were selected, and a summary of the implementation strategy.

The PPACA also requires that a CHNA take into account input from stakeholders that represent the broad interests of the community served by the hospital facility, including those with special knowledge or expertise in public health. Hospitals, local health departments, and other community partners can pool resources to conduct comprehensive CHAs that benefit multiple stakeholders and the community-at-large. The PPACA CHNA requirement provides additional incentive for communities with existing partnerships to build upon their collaborative work and for communities to begin working together.

This session will provide an overview of the use of the Healthy People 2020 framework and the MAPP process, in collaborative models between local health departments, hospitals, and other partners. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of MAPP staff and experienced users. This session will be of particular interest to state and local health department staff, community partners, hospital staff, and others interested in community health improvement initiatives.