Managing and sustaining Community Health Assessments (CHAs)

Action Checklist

  1. Reassess role and responsibilities of CHA Team.
  2. Assess progress.
  3. Revise the plan.
  4. Make changes.

  1. Reassess roles and responsibilities of Community Health Assessment (CHA) Team.

    With the CHA document completed, the roles of the CHA team members change to 'communication, health issue progress assessment and documentation team'. Each team member has to be aware of their responsibility as communication would be critical to implementation of the CHA, and make the process of writing your next comprehensive CHA easier. You may need to recruit new or different members to the team.

  2. Assess progress

    To inspire key stakeholders in promoting health behaviors and outcomes, information on how you would measure progress would need to be documented. Evaluation frameworks and models in the evaluation resources section can guide the evaluation process. Team members have to determine:
    • What data should we collect to determine progress?
    • Does the data indicate that we are making good progress?
    Unsatisfactory progress should result in further analysis of what is not working and what needs to be changed.

  3. Revise the plan.

    As the team monitors community buy-in and the success of each strategy, the next step is to determine whether adjustments are needed. The modified strategy could be minor adjustment to the plan, or it could involve intensive training and decision making. Whenever changes or adaptations are made, it would be the responsibility of the Assessment Tea to communicate them and the data behind those change to all involved groups.

  4. Make changes.

    Managing change means the Assessment Team needs to look at all the main components of the plan simultaneously and frequently. If data indicates that stakeholders are asked to change the way they are used to doing business, they will move through stages of change that include anxiety, resentment and hostility. The Assessment Team must be ready to provide additional support and training, recognition of problems, and successes, and modification of the plan based on the data collected. It is this recursive, cyclical element of the Assessment Process that enables health improvement in our communities.

- Adapted from Healthy People 2010 Toolkit