Applying community organizing principles to assess health needs in New Haven, Connecticut

A. Santilli, A. Carroll-Scott and J.R. Ickovics

American Journal of Public Health, 2016, vol. 106, issue 5, 841-847

Abstract: The Affordable Care Act added requirements for nonprofit hospitals to conduct community health needs assessments. Guidelines are minimal; however, they require input and representation from the broader community. This call echoes 2 decades of literature on the importance of including community members in all aspects of research design, a tenet of community organizing. We describe a community-engaged research approach to a community health needs assessment in New Haven, Connecticut. We demonstrate that a robust community organizing approach provided unique research benefits: access to residents for data collection, reliable data, leverage for community-driven interventions, and modest improvements in behavioral risk. We make recommendations for future community-engaged efforts and workforce development, which are important for responding to increasing calls for community health needs assessments.

Keywords: information processing; needs assessment; public health; resident; United States; Connecticut; demography; female; health behavior; health care delivery; health care policy; health status; human; information dissemination; legislation and jurisprudence; male; non profit hospital; organization and management; participatory research; poverty; public health; public relations; social capital; socioeconomics; university, Community-Based Participatory Research; Community-Institutional Relations; Connecticut; Female; Health Behavior; Health Services Accessibility; Health Status; Hospitals, Voluntary; Humans; Information Dissemination; Male; Needs Assessment; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Poverty Areas; Public Health; Residence Characteristics; Social Capital; Socioeconomic Factors; United States; Universities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2016.303050_7

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303050

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