News Releases

Community Health Needs Assessments Update

With data collection wrapping up in Cuyahoga County, The Center’s initiative to conduct community health needs assessments (CHNAs) in its members’ counties is nearly complete. Similar to the projects already completed in Ashtabula, Geauga, Lorain and Medina counties, this assessment was initiated by The Center as part of an effort to conduct overlapping needs assessments that would serve to meet requirements of the Affordable Care Act while also providing county-by-county and regional overviews of health needs. A final report for Cuyahoga County is expected by the end of the year with an event to publicly release the findings planned for early 2013.

In the other counties where community health needs assessments were conducted, events open to the public have already been held to release the results. Like the project currently underway in Cuyahoga County, each of the other participating counties surveyed residents on a wide range of information in areas such as health perceptions, healthcare access, cardiovascular health, adult and youth tobacco use, adult and youth sexual behavior and mental health. Final reports for these counties compared county results to state and national statistics. In the coming months, the results of each of these assessments will be used to compile a regional report on the health of Northeast Ohio residents.

The Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio was engaged by The Center to conduct the assessments in conjunction with stakeholder groups from each county. Hundreds of surveys were mailed to randomly-sampled adults (19-years of age or older) in each county. Some counties also opted to survey youth (6th through 12th graders) and/or the parents of young children (0 to 11 years of age). For additional information on The Center’s health needs assessment project contact Deanna Moore at 216.255.3614 or deanna.moore@chanet.org.