PUTTING THE “COMMUNITY” IN
COMMUNITY HEALTH
Using tools like SAVI to analyze community data improves local health
assessment quality, leading to better-targeted improvement plans that
address the most pressing issues.
Indiana hospitals have many opportunities to
increase the value and improve the quality of
their community health assessment reporting,
according to an examination by the Indiana
Partnership for Healthy Communities, a
collaboration of the Richard M. Fairbanks
School of Public Health, The Polis Center,
and the Indiana Clinical and Translational
Sciences Institute.
The Partnership recently completed
its review of 2012-2013 community health
assessment reports required by the federal
government. Among its findings, the
Partnership uncovered the crucial role that
data systems, like SAVI and its analytics
tools, can play as hub of local information
that can help to create higher value
community health assessments.
“Hospitals can use data to directly inform
the community conversations they hold to
identify health priorities,” says Karen Comer,
Director of Health Geoinformatics at The
Polis Center. For example, health indicator
data can be used to verify a perceived
community health disparity, such as a higher
8
incidence of lung cancer. In turn, hospitals
can use data-informed discussions with
community stakeholders to increase their
awareness of and engagement with existing
resources, such as smoking cessation
programs.
“Data also helps better target the use of
financial and human resources for community
health improvement efforts by using more
geographically specific indicators, such as
neighborhood-level versus county-level data
on prenatal smoking rates,” Comer says. For
example, a proposed educational campaign
can be targeted to those neighborhoods
where a higher percent of mothers report
smoking during pregnancy.
The review also indicated that hospitals
have the opportunity to more actively engage
local health departments throughout the
assessment process.
“The knowledge of the local health
department is invaluable for community
health needs assessments,” says Dr. Cynthia
Stone of the Richard M. Fairbanks School of
Public Health.