What is a CHA?

What is a Community Health Assessment (CHA)?

A Community Health Assessment or CHA refers to a systematic process that assesses and identifies key health needs and issues of a specific community. While a CHA does not provide a comprehensive review of all data, it can provide community organizations and members an overview of the health of their community, their needs, and help identify resources to address those needs. It is a snapshot of the community providing data on population level indicators related to many aspects of health. From this data, communities are able to prioritize strategies and activities that can improve health.

Why conduct a CHA?

Local public health departments are required to conduct a CHA every five years and use this information as a guide with community partners to address health needs. Hospitals as a provision under the Affordable Care Act are required to conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) and adopt implementation strategies based on the CHNA every three years. In most communities, hospitals and local public health departments work together to conduct a community health assessment in collaboration with the communities they serve.

Community organizations are also interested in information from a CHA and can use it to inform their specific community plans (economic and workforce development plans, strategic plans, etc.).

How is a CHA conducted?

Information included in a CHA is obtained through a variety of systematic, comprehensive data collection and analysis processes. Various methods are used to collect data and information from the community, and this information is then analyzed to determine the top health needs in the community.

Information can be obtained using:

• Surveys to community members and community organizations

• Interviews with community members and representatives of community service organizations

• Focus groups or community conversations

• Information from core data sets