An Analysis of Aggregated Community Health Assessments in North Carolina

There is no existing process or current research efforts that summarize the local health priorities found in the accreditation-mandated Community Health Assessments across North Carolina. This paper proposes a method for aggregating and analyzing multiple CHAs and specifically reviews CHAs from all 100 counties in NC from recent years. The method involves a process that collects CHAs, standardizes each included set of health priorities, balances and weights the priorities, and provides analysis of the summarized results using various variables relevant to public health leaders for the purposes of health improvement planning. The health priorities most reported by local counties across NC were Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity; Substance Abuse; Access to Health Services; and Mental Health. The results from this method of analysis are pertinent to public health leaders for the purposes of state and regional health improvement planning.Master of Public Healt