Building a Healthy Community: Using the Community Health Assessment to Prioritize Major Health Concerns for Strategic Planning

Community Health Assessments are a core public health function and provide a foundation for improving and promoting the health of a community.  The Mecklenburg County Health Department conducts a Community Health Assessment (CHA) every four years, findings of which are used for strategic planning and community action plans. The Mecklenburg CHA includes a review of community health indicators, a community opinion survey, a community priority setting activity and action planning on the leading identified priorities. In 2013, the Mecklenburg CHA Advisory Committee reviewed nine priority focus areas:  Access to Care, Chronic Disease and Disability, Environmental Health, Injury, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Responsible Sexual Behavior and Violence.  Approximately 1,900 residents participated in an online/paper Community Opinion Survey to gauge community beliefs and attitudes towards health and prioritize the nine focus areas. 117 individuals, representing a variety of community agencies, attended a formal CHA Priority Setting meeting which included an intensive review of health data. Participants were asked to score each priority area from 1 (least weight) to 10 (most weight) using the following criteria: magnitude, severity, intervention effectiveness, public concern and urgency.  Calculated scores were used to rank each focus area. Weighted rankings from the survey and priority setting event were combined to yield the top four focus areas:  Chronic Disease and Disability, Mental Health, Access to Care, and Violence. Recommendations from the event will be used in the action planning process.