Tennessee Department of Health, 425 5th Ave North, Nashville, TN 37243. E-mail:
Tennessee Department of Health, Nashville, Tennessee.
Prev Chronic Dis. 2014 Jan 2;11:130206. doi: 10.5888/pcd11.130206.
Community health assessment is a core function of public health departments, a standard for accreditation of public health departments, and a core competency for public health professionals. The Tennessee Department of Health developed a statewide initiative to improve the processes for engaging county health departments in assessing their community's health status through the collection and analysis of secondary data. One aim of the Tennessee Department of Health was to position county public health departments as trusted leaders in providing population data and engaging community stakeholders in assessments. The Tennessee Department of Health's Division of Policy, Planning, and Assessment conducted regional 2-day training workshops to explain and guide completion of computer spreadsheets on 12 health topics. Participants from 93 counties extracted data from multiple and diverse sources to quantify county demographics, health status, and resources and wrote problem statements based on the data examined. The workshops included additional staff development through integration of short lessons on data analysis, epidemiology, and social-behavior theory. Participants reported in post-workshop surveys higher degrees of comfort in interpreting data and writing about their findings on county health issues, and they shared their findings with health, hospital, school, and government leaders (including county health council members) in their counties. Completion of the assessments enabled counties and the Tennessee Department of Health to address performance-improvement goals and assist counties in preparing to meet public health accreditation prerequisites. The methods developed for using secondary data for community health assessment are Tennessee's first-phase response to counties' request for a statewide structure for conducting such assessments.
社区卫生评估是公共卫生部门的核心职能，是公共卫生部门认证的标准，也是公共卫生专业人员的核心能力。田纳西州卫生部开展了一项全州范围的倡议，旨在通过收集和分析二手数据，改进让县卫生部门参与评估其社区健康状况的流程。田纳西州卫生部的一个目标是让县公共卫生部门成为提供人口数据并让社区利益相关者参与评估的可信赖的领导者。田纳西州卫生部的政策、规划和评估司举办了为期两天的区域培训研讨会，解释并指导如何在 12 个健康主题的计算机电子表格上完成工作。来自 93 个县的参与者从多个和不同的来源提取数据，以量化县的人口统计数据、健康状况和资源，并根据所审查的数据编写问题陈述。研讨会还通过整合数据分析、流行病学和社会行为理论的简短课程，为员工提供了更多的发展机会。参与者在研讨会后的调查中报告称，他们在解释数据和撰写有关县卫生问题的发现方面更加自在，并且他们在各自的县内向卫生、医院、学校和政府领导人（包括县卫生委员会成员）分享了他们的发现。完成评估使县和田纳西州卫生部能够实现绩效改进目标，并帮助县为满足公共卫生认证的先决条件做好准备。利用二手数据进行社区卫生评估的方法是田纳西州对各县要求建立全州范围的此类评估结构的第一阶段响应。
