141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

293899
Community health (needs) assessment and community health improvement planning efforts across the US: Early findings on geographic coverage, partnerships, and the use of healthy people 2020

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 2:30 PM - 2:50 PM

Reena Chudgar, MPH , Program Analyst for Assessment and Planning and Accreditation Preparation and Quality Improvement, National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), Washington, DC
A confluence of factors is producing increased interest and activity in community health assessment (CHA), community health needs assessment (CHNA) and community health improvement planning (CHIP), with the goal to improve the public's health, including the launch of the voluntary, national public health accreditation program in fall 2011; new legal and regulatory requirements for non-profit hospitals to regularly conduct CHNAs and adopt an implementation strategy; and the need to prioritize communities' limited resources due to economic recession. While many communities have been conducting this work for years, these factors may serve as a catalyst for more effective and collaborative community health improvement efforts and presents a prime opportunity for alignment of efforts in communities. This session will describe the conceptual framework for systematically collecting data, through an internet search of existing, publicly posted documents, and methodically inputting them into a Qualtrics-based database. Participants will hear information on attributes and geographic distribution of CHAs, CHNAs and CHIPs across the 50 states and will be provided an overview of the early findings. Attributes of CHAs, CHNAs and CHIPs catalogued include the year published, lead organization(s), models/frameworks used, extent of Healthy People use, third party firms/consultants involved, the number of partnerships, measured by the number or organizations listed in the documents, and the coverage, or lack off, CHAs, CHNAs and CHIP efforts by state. Participants will also hear how these data are relevant to the practice of public health and inform more effective and collaborative community health improvement efforts.

Learning Areas:
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the attributes of community health (needs) assessment and improvement planning efforts. Discuss some state variations in community health (needs) assessment and improvement planning efforts. Explain the importance and relevance of these data to public health practice.

Keywords: Community Health Assessment, Healthy People 2020

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have had directly involvement in community health assessment and improvement planning work while at NACCHO over the past 2 years.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.