Health Priorities: How do Health Departments, Community Members, and Health Indicators Compare?

Introduction: Many counties have specific achievable goals related to specific health disparities and inequities, which may not be in line with county health statistics and community members’ perceived needs. As part of a larger needs assessment, this study assessed whether priorities among health departments were notably different from health indicator data and community concerns.

Methods: Six counties were chosen to be a part of the study. Two focus groups, each with 10-12 community members, were conducted for each county. Focus group participants were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling techniques and split into session based on native language (English/Spanish) and/or age (under/over 35 years).  Focus groups were recorded, transcribed, and thematically coded. Community member data were compared to priorities obtained from each county’s most recent County Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) report and 2014 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings & Roadmaps health indicator data.

Results: Access to health care (transportation, insurance) and nutrition were the leading community concerns. The most common CHIP goals were increasing access to health care (83%); and reducing teen pregnancies (66%), sexually transmitted infections (50%), and obesity (50%). Leading health indicators across all counties were low access to exercise, high rates of teen births, and low access to health care providers.

Conclusions: Preliminary data suggest some agreement between community members, health indicator data, and health administration priorities. Access to care was listed as a factor among all three sources, but other priorities diverged between community members, health indicator data, and health administrations.