Community Health Assessment

How can a community ensure that it is addressing the health needs specific to its members, making the most of its own resources, and effectively working to create a healthy community?

The Medical Foundation partners with communities, organizations, and individuals from small urban neighborhoods to large rural areas to engage in community assessment processes that aim to answer these questions. TMF tailors the process to fit each community, involving some or all of the following steps:

Steve Ridini, Vice President, TMF

• Convening a diverse group of community members from various sectors
• Identifying or developing community indicators (statistical data on health and its predictors)
• Identifying existing and new resources for collecting data
• Engaging with the community to create community dialogue and inspire community action
• Conducting quantitative (statistical) research and qualitative research, or people’s “stories”
• Presenting findings reflecting community needs and resources for community input and feedback
• Action planning to identify priorities and develop strategies to meet them
• Evaluating the outcomes of strategies and process
  
  The process is based upon and guided by the health priorities and values of a community. The goal is to improve community members’ quality of life by bringing together resources and strengths to meet community needs.

Examples of community health assessment processes TMF has facilitated include:

• Assessing the health status of a large rural area in Vermont to identify needs and guide grantmaking by the newly established Holt Fund.
• Working with a private funder to determine the community impact of 25 years of grantmaking, which will guide future funding priorities.
• Measuring health through the development and study of community indicators for United Ways and private funders in New England and the Midwest.
• Working with United Ways, private trusts, and other community-based foundations to develop capacity to assess the effectiveness of their funding programs.
• Assessing the impact and building the capacity of community-based coalitions to deliver private and public health services in mid-Atlantic and New England states.
  
  TMF’s community health assessment services are flexible and responsive to the needs, resources, and goals of your own community.

Contact: Steve Ridini