CIC Support for Community Health Assessment and Health Improvement Planning
Integration of Community Indicators and Performance Measures into Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans
A Collaboration between the Community Indicators Consortium and the National Association of City and County Health Officers (NACCHO), funded by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
CIC and NACCHO have provided technical support to 12 health districts in completing their Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans that are required for accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB).
The RWJF sponsorship enabled CIC to provide assistance and resources to local health departments preparing for accreditation.
The case studies identified in this series are intended to highlight a wealth of practices for measuring, taking action, and monitoring progress on determinants of health. Defined as “the range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status” by Healthy People 2020, these factors are an essential component of quality Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans. View the full list of Promising Practices here.
Practices employed by community indicators initiatives in the U.S. and Internationally are potential resources for local health departments (LHDs) in their essential community health assessment and planning activities. Often times, health agencies are active collaborators, contributing data, analytics, leadership, and other expertise to these broader projects. To represent a cross section of practices and tools, the practices selected meet the following broad criteria:
Social and Environmental Determinants Focus: Indicators for “upstream” prevention-oriented social and environmental determinants; practices to advance health equity, and community quality of life.
Non-traditional partners with broad ownership: Assessments and community health improvement plans that engage the community and partners in sectors outside of the traditional health sphere, and exemplify broad ownership.
Action-oriented: Community health improvement plans that are actionable, that have engaged policy makers/leaders, that have clearly stated priorities and measures of progress, foster greater accountability, and emphasize concrete actions.
Innovative: Examples of game changing tools and approaches that make the best of web-based tools for collaboration, strategy, encourage open data, data sharing.
To review the case studies, go to the Promising Practices page and click on a project name.
For more information and resources related to use of indicators in Community Health Assessment, visit our Community Health Assessment resource page or go to our full Indicator Resource Database. An example of a very valuable web resource is the County Health Rankings which offers a rich set of resources for learning, including a showcase of community partnerships. http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/