Community Health Assessments and Community Health Planning

Association for Community Health Improvement – The Association for Community Health Improvement is a national association for community health, community benefit, and healthy communities’ professionals. They provide practical tools that help expand the knowledge and enhance performance in achieving community health goals. Their toolkit is a practical guide to planning leading, and using community health assessments, including details on the six step process. More information

Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) – ASTHO supports states’ health assessments by developing a guide called State Health Assessment Guidance and Resources. Click here to download this publication. In addition, ASTHO has many state examples of State Health Assessments and State Health Improvement Plans. More information

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – CDC provides the beginners guide to community health assessments, including why assessments are helpful for communities, drivers of health assessment and improvement planning, assessment & planning models, frameworks & tools, data & benchmarks, stories & examples, and other resources for completing health assessments. More information Resources for implementing the community health needs assessment process provides a quick background on CHDA, principles to guide a CHNA process, and many other resources. More information
CDC also provides information on the Behavior Rick factor Surveillance System, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System and the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.

Community Commons – Community Commons is an interactive mapping, networking, and learning utility for broad-based community planning efforts. This is particularly useful for community health assessment data gathering. More information . This website also hosts the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) toolkit. The toolkit is a free web-based platform designed to assist hospitals, public health, and organizations seeking to better understand the needs and assets of their communities, and to collaborate to make measureable improvements in community health and well-being. Click here for more information More information

Community Tool Box – The Community Tool Box was created to help people build healthier communities and bring about the changes they envision. This site provides educational modules and tools to help people work together to make their communities what they dream they can be. Although the Community Tool Box has thousands of pages of resources, its design makes it easy to find what you want. Specifically, Chapters 1 – 5 discuss models for community change and improvement and community needs assessments. More information

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps – The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, is an interactive website where the County Health Rankings show how we as a nation are doing and where we can improve on health. The Roadmaps show what we can do to create healthier places to live, learn, work and play. Use the Rankings and data to understand what affects health in your own community and where to focus your attention. Visit their Action Center and get guidance to help improve health in your community, and read and share stories from other communities and inspire others by sharing stories about your journey toward better health. More information

Health Indicators Warehouse – The Health Indicators Warehouse is a collaboration of many agencies and offices within the department of Health and Human Services. It is maintained by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The purpose of the Warehouse is to provide access to high quality data to improve the understanding of a community’s health status and determinants, and facilitate the prioritization of interventions. It is a single, user-friendly, source for national, state, and community health indicators. More information

Healthy People 2020 – Healthy People provides science-based, 10 year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. This website contains the 2020 topics and objectives, data, ways to implement Healthy People in your community, and the leading health indicators. More information

Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) – MDH has an extensive Community Health Assessment and community health improvement plan website. They provide an overview, process overview, and flow charts to assist health departments organize for the process. More information about their Assessment and Planning website
Their website also includes “How to Conduct a Community Health Assessment” and “How to Draft a Community Health Improvement Plan”

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (MDHSS) – The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services hosts an interactive planning system designed for use by public health practitioners and community stakeholders to improve the health of a community. This interactive website uses data driven and evidenced-based public health processes to guide decision-making, priority setting and intervention planning. More information

National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) – NACCHO has been developing community health assessment resources for local public health agencies for many years. More information. NACCHO hosts the nation’s most widely used community health assessment process called Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP). MAPP is a community-driven strategic planning tool for improving community health by facilitating four assessments that are completed by community stakeholders and partners. More information. In addition, NACCHO has a Resource Center for Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans. This Resource Center provides practical, customizable tools and resources to all local health departments in a central and publicly accessible location. More information
Of particular note are their examples of high quality CHAS and CHIPS. More information

National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) – NNPHI has been supporting numerous public health improvement initiatives over the years. For instance, NNPHI hosts trainings, webinars, and conferences and manages programs that build the community of practice of public health improvement and facilitate the sharing of resources and best practices. Many of NNPHI’s members (and MICH is a member) support these initiatives and partner with health departments to offer technical assistance in areas related Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans. More information and their QI resource page

Network of Care – The Network of Care for Public Health Assessment and Wellness is provided in partnership with the National Association of Counties (NACo) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). This website offers a revolutionary way to create change and improve health locally. It enables local public health departments to quickly distribute vita health information to individuals and families at the ground level, maximizes the value of local, state, and national health data to determine needs and support consumers and communities and it equips policy makers and consumers to analyze integrated sets of data and bring complex community—health issues into focus. It integrates NACCHO’s Model Practices and CDC Interventions with each Health Indicator to spur positive change. More information

Public Health Institute (PHI) – The Public Health Institute has written a report titled “Best Practices for Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Strategy Development” written in 2012. Funded by CDC, the purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the science, methods, and current practices in the community health improvement process. Click here to learn more More information