Making the Most of Our Community Health Assessment by Developing a Framework for Evaluation

The Health District of Northern Larimer County is a special district delivering community health programs and services in Northern Colorado. Since 1995, we have conducted a community health assessment (CHA) every 3 years. In 2015, we looked at our CHA process to see whether improvements could be made. We gathered information to understand recommended processes and potential impacts of CHA. We then developed a logic model to describe our CHA process and intended outcomes. The model outlined our CHA activities and impacts and informed our evaluation questions. We identified areas for process improvement, including our ability to analyze health inequities and effectively disseminate CHA data and findings. We recommend that others conducting a CHA evaluate their processes and impacts. Developing a logic model can be a first step toward creating an evaluation. While evaluation requires resources, we believe that the practice of CHA could greatly benefit from additional evaluation efforts.