03/29/2024
Spread the love

Contributed

Bladen County Health Department is partnering with Cape Fear Valley/Bladen County Hospital to complete a Regional Community Health Assessment/Community Health Needs Assessment. This is a new partnership with East Carolina University, Brody School of Medicine. Cape Fear Valley and Bladen County Health department is required to complete a Community Health Assessment (CHA), Needs Assessment (CHNA), every 3 years. For the health department, the CHA addresses accreditation standards and is tied directly to our State funding.  The CHNA is a requirement of the local hospital and has to be addressed on their IRS forms, as well as a requirement in partnership with Public Health.

The CHA/CHNA is used as an indicator or snap-shot of the county’s health concerns and health priorities that need to be addressed. The data is obtained through primary and secondary data from surveys of individuals in the county. The goal sample size for the county is usually over 400 surveys that are collected. Questions range from how many children are in the household, whether an individual smokes, and their opinion of the biggest health concern in their community.  Priorities identified based on the surveys typically steer towards health concerns such as: Heart Disease, Cancer, Respiratory Disease, Unintentional Motor Vehicle Injuries, Diabetes, and Substance Abuse (Prescription over the counter use/misuse of drugs). Secondary Data and indicators are also taken from the NC State Center for Health Statistics and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Identified health issues are recognized and are addressed by a steering committee through the form of action plans in alignment with the Governors 2020 Health Objectives from the Department of Health and Human Services. Action Plans are completed based on the results of the CHA. The Action Plans guide the committee in projects and programs that will be conducted throughout the county to combat and address the health concerns identified and are listed within the document.

The survey will be conducted in an online survey format as well as a paper format. The survey will be offered to individuals from around the county and will be available in English and Spanish. ECU will steer this year’s Community Health Assessment survey tool, which should be available by the end of April. Once the data is collected, secondary and statistical data will be collected and a document will be compiled. The CHA is due to be submitted by the 1st Monday in March of 2019 to DHHS.

The focus of the regional approach to a community health assessment, is to streamline the process and make a more consistent document available for purposes of comparing data with our peer counties as well as across the state of North Carolina.

Cape Fear Valley and Bladen County Health Department are excited to be a part of this project.

For any questions regarding the project, or to participate, Call: Health Education at Bladen County Health Department at 910-862-6900 extension 5.

About Author