Evaluating the Impact of MAPP on Community Healthcare Outcomes

This essay explores the impact of Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership (MAPP) as a strategic planning tool for improving community health. It outlines the MAPP process, including organizing, visioning, assessment, strategic issues identification, goal setting, and action cycles. The assessment phase is highlighted as crucial for understanding community strengths, challenges, and health system capacities. The essay discusses how MAPP implementation has led to improvements in public health agencies, such as the Knox County Department of Health (KCDH) and the Norfolk Department of Public Health (NDPH). It also examines the impact of MAPP on adolescent substance abuse prevention. The essay concludes that MAPP is an effective strategic planning tool that strengthens health systems and prioritizes actions for improved community health outcomes, as evidenced by case studies and research findings.

Running head: QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN HEALTHCARE
IMPACT OF MAPP
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1IMPACT OF MAPP
Strategic planning is important irrespective to any organization for defining any
strategy and developing decision-making ability. According to Kemp (2018), strategic
planning helps the organization to accomplish its mission and vision. It helps in position their
organization in the hostile environment and helps in direction for growth in future. Many
approaches comes under strategic planning. However, Mobilizing for action through planning
and partnership (MAPP) is considered as an effective approach to implement in strategic
planning for the benefit of community health. According to Harris (2016), the community
health will improve the wellbeing of the individuals where they live in that includes life
expectancy, healthy life, proper educations and many others. This essay examines the cause
and effect of implementing MAPP as strategize planning tool for improving the overall
community health.
Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership is a process of strategic
planning. It is a tool that provides strategic planning explicitly for public health. According to
naccho.org. (2020), it was developed under the joint project of the non-profit national
association of country and city health officials (NACCHO) along with disease control and
prevention (CDC). It is based on partnering and collaborating with all the efficient public
health institutes besides among the public health system and community. The major
principles under MAPP include systematic thinking, dialogues to ensure every perspective of
stakeholders, shared vision, data for implementation the planning, partnership, proactive
strategized thinking and encouraging the achievements (ctb.ku.edu, 2020). In Figure 1, the
entire process of MAPP has been shown. The initial stage under this process is organizing the
success and develop a partnership for an effective outcome of the MAPP model. The
implementation of the process would begin by recruiting the effective committee for
developing the plan. The second stage is visioning, the entire community with the committee
member develops overall shared vision of health. It will help in giving direction to the plan

2IMPACT OF MAPP
and immediate steps that need to be taken (Farahani et al., 2018). The assessment is the next
phase of the model that will assess in multiple areas such as strength, local health system,
community status and forces that is required for the change. The fourth stage is strategic
issues, with the help of the participatory approach, the data can be collected to find the issues.
Setting goals or strategies is the next phase that will be done with the help of analyzing the
key issues. The final stage is an action cycle, and it comprises of planning, implementation
along with the evaluation of the action. The action phase is a continual process for effective
outcomes and to work towards the vision or to plan a new vision according to the assessment.
Under the procedures of MAPP implementation, the assessment phase is considered
to be crucial as it completes the assessment of community health. It brings the outcome of
community strength, challenges faced by the community, capacity of the local health system
and any local trends that may affect the health system (Story et al., 2016). The assessment
data collected with the help of the MAPP model is reliable and provide relevant information
about the issues in the health system. Further, this data implement in the existing organization
plan to enhance the outcomes for the improved added quality. This model of MAPP is a
community-based approach and therefore, includes multiple entities like public, private and
voluntary or independent entities. Thus, resulting in optimal strategic planning compared to
any single public health agency. According to Davis et al. (2014), with the help of
implementing the MAPP strategic planning tool, there was an efficient improvement in the
quality of public health agencies. Understanding and analyzing emerging issues in the health
system has created an opportunity. This opportunity had created a withstand quality
improvement in the health system. Increase in the number of local public health agencies
would increase the overall quality of the community. However, they often face a barrier to
enhance the quality such as lack of time or relevancy, lack of financial funds and insufficient
training.

3IMPACT OF MAPP
According to the Virginia Department of Health. (2016), implementing MAPP in the
Knox country department of health (KCDH) had enhanced the quality of the management.
The MAPP can result from operational planning to strategic planning. The implementation of
MAPP in Knox has promoted the health in the Knox country. MAPP has prioritized the
necessity of a community approach. Therefore, community-wide strategic planning was
planned. After the successful implementation of such a strategy and the effect of the planning
has proved that the previous organization planning was not effective. The community-based
assessment has focused on adults irrespective to their beliefs or occupations. This assessment
has publicized the positive quality of life, such as low crimes record, job availability, a safe
environment along with good education. However, they prioritize issue that came up were
increased rate of obesity, stroke, domestic abuse and mental health. For addressing the
prioritize issue found with the help of the MAPP model, KCDH needs to develop leadership
team members. With implementing MAPP strategic planning, KCHD has become the
accredited health department that will help in strengthening the delivering of high-quality
care to the community.
The MAPP process also affected the prevention of drug use among the adolescence.
According to Segal, Morral, & Stevens (2014), drug use among adolescents has increased the
concern in the United States. The 6 phase of the MAPP model has been implemented with the
sample size of 720 adolescents. The model will identify key issues that are leading the
increase of drugs to use among adolescents. Therefore, this model has shown effective
differences in improving the management for controlling the drug user group. It has enhanced
the knowledge, self-efficacy and social skills related to the substance use behaviour. Thus,
resulting in enhanced prevention program (Dastgerdi & Eslami, 2017). However, perceived
social support was not much affected by this model.

4IMPACT OF MAPP
The Norfolk Department of Public Health (NDPH) has conducted health planning
with the implementation of MAPP. They have worked with the community advisory board
(CAB), implementing the partnership module from the MAPP model. Under this model, there
would be four major assessments, including the local public health system, community
strength, community health status and forces of change. The major cause for implementing
MAPP is an increased rate of chronic disease, mental health, analyzing the social determinant
that increases the issue of health. MAPP has identified the prioritize health issues that need to
be addressed that would improve the quality of life Norfolk. Therefore, the development of a
community health improvement plan (CHIP) need to be implemented by the NDPH and CAB
(Virginia Department of Health, 2016). The CHP would help in addressing the prioritize
health issues that have found with the help of MAPP. Furthermore, the action plan was
continual in progress for the necessary changes or updated to achieve the shared vision of the
organization.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that MAPP is an effective strategic
planning tool. The effect of MAPP model implementation would strengthen the health system
along with identifies the health issues and prioritize the effective action towards the quality of
community health. The MAPP has effected positive outcomes in multiple disciplinary such as
effective outcomes in adolescence for the prevention of substance use. The NDPH and
KCDH have also generated greater benefits with implementing a strategic planning tool that
is mobilizing for action through planning and partnership (MAPP). Therefore, the proper
implementation of such strategic planning tool would provide multiple approaches for
improving the quality of life or in any prospect in the community.

5IMPACT OF MAPP
REFERENCES
ctb.ku.edu. (2020). Chapter 2. Other Models for Promoting Community Health and
Development | Section 13. MAPP: Mobilizing for Action through Planning and
Partnerships | Main Section | Community Tool Box. Retrieved 22 February 2020,
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Dastgerdi, Z. F., & Eslami, A. (2017). 137: THE EVALUATION OF A DRUG USE
PREVENTION PROGRAM AMONG ADOLESCENCES BASED ON
MOBILIZING FOR ACTION THROUGH PLANNING AND PARTNERSHIPS
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Taghizadeh, Z. (2018). Study protocol for promoting physical activity among
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Harris, M. J. (2016). Evaluating public and community health programs. John Wiley &
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Kemp, R. L. (2018). Strategic planning in local government. Routledge.

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naccho.org. (2020). Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) -
NACCHO. Naccho.org. Retrieved 22 February 2020, from
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Story, C. R., Knutson, D., Kao, W. K., Stuck, A., Shreffler, R., Pratt, K., ... & Miller, B.
M. (2016). HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AND SOCIAL
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AND PARTNERSHIPS FEASIBILITY STUDY. American Journal of Health
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PLANNING & PARTNERSHIPS IN NORFOLK (pp. 1-31). Virginia Department
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Health-Needs-Assessment-62816?bidId=.

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Appendix
Figure 1
Source: (ctb.ku.edu, 2020)