Conducting community assessment I

Community assessment is one of the core functions of public health. The Institute of Medicine report, The Future of Public Health, emphasized the importance of strengthening the core functions and identified community assessment as a fundamental requirement to guide public health decision making. Program planners, policy makers, and health educators need quick and easy access to descriptive chronic disease statistics in order to prioritize investments in public health initiatives. This session will provide a system to characterize the chronic disease burden in a standardized manner in order to motivate action, integrate surveillance into program planning, characterize areas and demographic groups, and expose health disparities. The focus is on chronic disease risks and behaviors for which there are evidence based approaches. This interactive session will provide support for deciding where to focus chronic disease efforts.