PUBH8475 Advanced Program: Planning & Integrating Health Assessments

This discussion board post examines the critical role of proper planning in community health assessments, highlighting the adverse impacts of inadequate planning on public health programs. It uses a community health assessment undertaken in Wayne County, Michigan, focusing on sexually transmitted diseases, as a case study. The discussion emphasizes the need for comprehensive data collection, multisector collaboration, and proactive community engagement to improve assessment planning. Integrating community health assessment into program planning requires identifying and engaging relevant community stakeholders and clearly defining the community to determine the scope of assessment and intervention mechanisms. The post references scholarly articles to support its arguments and recommendations for effective community health assessment planning.

Running head: ADVANCED PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION 1
Pubh8475_ Advanced Program Implementation and Evaluation
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

ADVANCED PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION 2
Pubh8475_ Advanced Program Implementation and Evaluation
Improper planning of community health assessment has adverse impacts on the public
health program as it results in inadequate information is available regarding the community’s
current health status, issues, and needs (Laymon, Shah, Leep, Elligers & Kumar, 2015). Lack of
proper planning of the community health assessment will also result in poor organizational and
community collaboration and coordination, weakened partnerships between the local and state
public health systems, and inadequate knowledge regarding public health and related activities
(CDC, 2015). In addition, poor planning of a community health assessment program will
adversely affect the long-term and systematic efforts to address the public health problems
within the community. Therefore, it is important to plan adequately in order to address the needs
of the community.
For this discussion, the community health assessment selected was undertaken at Wayne
County, Michigan. It involved an assessment of the reportable sexually transmitted diseases in
the particular regard Gonorrhea, Campylobacter, Hepatitis and Syphilis. To improve the planning
of your community health assessment, there is the need to identify the fundamental health issues
and needs through a set of strategies that entail the comprehensive and systematic data collection
and analysis (Laymon, Shah, Leep, Elligers & Kumar, 2015). In order to improve the community
health assessment planning, there is the need to employ a multisector collaboration through the
collaborative participation of all the members involved (Laymon, Shah, Leep, Elligers & Kumar,
2015). In addition, there is the need to be proactive, diverse, and broad during the planning phase
so as to enhance community engagement and improve on the results of the assessment program.

ADVANCED PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION 3
In addition, integrating the community health assessment into the program planning will
require the healthcare professional to identify and engage the relevant community stakeholders.
This is necessary so as to create a stronger sense of joint partnership in the community health
assessment program (Eldredge et al., 2016). Besides, the defining the community is another key
element of integrating the community health assessment into the program planning, as it will
clearly determine the scope of the assessment and intervention mechanisms.

ADVANCED PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION 4
References
CDC. (2015, November 9). CDC - Assessment and Plans - Community Health Assessment -
STLT Gateway. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/stltpublichealth/cha/plan.html
Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., & Parcel, G. S. (2016). Planning
health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Laymon, B., Shah, G., Leep, C. J., Elligers, J. J., & Kumar, V. (2015). The proof's in the
partnerships: Are affordable care act and local health department accreditation practices
influencing collaborative partnerships in community health assessment and improvement
planning? Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 21(1), 12-17.