CHL 610 Week 1 Defining the Community and Purpose of Assessment Example

Whose Community, Whose Assessment? Defining the East Side of a Yakima Valley City and the Purpose of a Shared Community Health Assessment

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

CHL/610: Community Health Assessment

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The neighborhoods, hospital, health district, coalition and planning decisions are composites written for a model paper modeled on Yakima, Washington; city estimates come from CDC PLACES, and research findings come from the sources cited.

At the first planning meeting for a new community health assessment, three partners described the community three ways. The hospital's planner showed a map of the zip codes where most of its patients lived. The health district's epidemiologist showed census tracts on the city's east side with the highest poverty. The director of a community coalition said her members defined the east side as the neighborhoods where their families shop, worship and send children to school, including a few blocks across the railroad tracks that neither map included. This paper settles on a definition and a purpose.

What Is a Community?

Public health uses the word community often and defines it rarely. A study that asked people in several diverse US communities, along with researchers, what community meant found a common definition: a group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives and engage in joint action in geographical locations or settings; participants defined community similarly but experienced it differently (MacQueen et al., 2001).

Applying the Definition

The definition has four elements. Place: the east side of the city, bounded by the railroad, the river and two arterial roads. Social ties: extended families, congregations, schools and workplaces in orchards and packing houses. Shared perspectives: a history of farm labor, a strong Spanish-speaking culture and experiences with seasonal work. Joint action: parish festivals, a mutual aid network formed during the pandemic and parent groups at the elementary schools.

Who Lives There

The east side is home to roughly 32,000 of the city's 97,000 residents. Most are Hispanic, many are bilingual and a substantial share speak mainly Spanish. Many adults work in agriculture, food processing and health care support jobs. Households are larger and younger than the city's average.

The City's Health Picture

CDC's PLACES estimates for 2023 show that in the city as a whole, 12.9% of adults have diagnosed diabetes, 39.7% have obesity, 19.7% of working-age adults have no health coverage and 28.1% report no leisure-time physical activity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2025). Each is roughly double the estimate for Seattle, the state's largest city. East side rates are likely higher still, which the assessment will examine.

A Brief History

The east side grew as housing for workers in the valley's orchards, hop fields and packing plants. Families arrived in waves from Mexico and Texas over several decades, and many have lived there for three generations. Residents describe a strong sense of place alongside frustration that the neighborhood's needs are often overlooked in citywide planning. That history shapes how residents view institutions and why trust must be earned.

Where People Gather

Mapping gathering places helped define the community. Residents named two Catholic parishes and several evangelical churches, a community center, three elementary schools, a Mexican grocery, a flea market held on weekends and the soccer fields by the river. These places will host outreach and focus groups, and several became partners in the assessment.

Why the Boundaries Matter

Boundaries decide whose needs are counted. The coalition's definition added the blocks across the tracks, which contain a mobile home park and a migrant housing complex. Excluding them would have missed residents with some of the greatest needs. The partners adopted the coalition's boundaries, with census tracts adjusted to match.

Three Purposes

Each partner had a reason to assess. The nonprofit hospital faces a federal rule tied to its tax exemption: a fresh needs assessment each three-year cycle, followed by a written plan for acting on it. The health district needs a community health assessment for national public health accreditation. The coalition wants evidence to support grant applications and to hold institutions accountable.

How Assessments Vary

These requirements do not guarantee quality. When researchers scored the needs assessments and implementation plans that 95 Texas nonprofit hospitals had posted, quality ranged widely; reports tended to be stronger where a consultant ran the process or the hospital worked alongside its local health department (Pennel et al., 2015). A required report can be a checklist or a turning point, depending on who is at the table.

Sharing Control

Partnership requires more than a seat. A review of community-based research describes principles such as involving community members in all aspects of research, combining partners' expertise and integrating knowledge with action to benefit the community (Israel et al., 1998). The partners agreed that residents would help set questions, collect data, interpret results and choose priorities.

The Purpose Statement

The partners adopted this purpose: to understand the health of east side residents, the conditions that shape it and the community's own strengths, so that residents, the hospital, the health district and partners can choose shared priorities and act on them together over the next three years.

Scope

The assessment covers physical and mental health, access to care and social conditions such as housing, food, work and safety. It includes secondary data, surveys, focus groups, photovoice and asset mapping. It covers all ages, with attention to children, older adults and farmworkers.

Questions the Assessment Will Answer

The steering committee agreed on four guiding questions: What are the most serious health problems on the east side, and who is most affected? What conditions in housing, work, food, transportation and safety shape those problems? What strengths and resources does the community already have? And which problems do residents most want addressed first?

Partners and Roles

The hospital funds the assessment and provides clinical data. The health district leads data analysis. The coalition leads community outreach and hosts focus groups. A steering committee of 12, half of them residents, makes decisions. A local university provides methods support.

Timeline and Uses

The assessment will take nine months: three for secondary data and planning, three for surveys, focus groups and photovoice and three for analysis, community review and priority setting. Results will inform the hospital's implementation strategy, the health district's improvement plan and the coalition's grant applications, and will be shared with residents in English and Spanish at community events.

Lessons From the Last Assessment

The hospital's previous assessment relied on a phone survey in English and a meeting at its own conference room. Few east side residents took part, and its priorities drew little community support. The partners reviewed that report together and agreed that this assessment would go to residents rather than ask residents to come to the hospital.

Ethics

Residents who share information will be protected by consent procedures and confidentiality, and the steering committee will decide how findings about sensitive topics, such as immigration concerns, are reported.

Conclusion

Three maps became one community by applying an evidence-based definition that includes place, ties, shared perspectives and joint action, and by listening to residents about where their community ends. The assessment serves a hospital requirement, an accreditation standard and a coalition's goals, and evidence on uneven assessment quality and principles of community-based research led the partners to share control from the start.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). PLACES: Place data (GIS friendly format), 2025 release [Data set]. data.cdc.gov. https://data.cdc.gov/d/vgc8-iyc4

Israel, B. A., Schulz, A. J., Parker, E. A., & Becker, A. B. (1998). Review of community-based research: Assessing partnership approaches to improve public health. Annual Review of Public Health, 19, 173-202. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173

MacQueen, K. M., McLellan, E., Metzger, D. S., Kegeles, S., Strauss, R. P., Scotti, R., Blanchard, L., & Trotter, R. T., II. (2001). What is community? An evidence-based definition for participatory public health. American Journal of Public Health, 91(12), 1929-1938. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.91.12.1929

Pennel, C. L., McLeroy, K. R., Burdine, J. N., & Matarrita-Cascante, D. (2015). Nonprofit hospitals' approach to community health needs assessment. American Journal of Public Health, 105(3), e103-e113. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302286