Community Health Improvement Plan

What Is a Community Health Improvement Plan?

A community health improvement plan (also referred to as a CHIP) works to address the health needs of a community, like Lake County, through a collaborative effort of many different county agencies and organizations. First, a community health needs assessment (CHNA) is conducted to determine the major priority areas to be addressed. In Lake County, the CHNA was conducted in 2019, and it was determined that the two overarching priority areas to be addressed were chronic disease and mental health and addiction. From there, the CHIP is assembled with a variety of workplans related to the priority areas. These workplans are led by different agencies throughout the county, so that organizations can lend their expertise to the collaborative effort.

You can read more about the health themes and priority areas in Lake County’s CHNA and CHIP documents, both linked above.

Here’s a more technical explanation from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC)

A community health improvement plan (or CHIP) is a long-term, systematic effort to address public health problems based on the results of community health assessment activities and the community health improvement process. A plan is typically updated every three to five years.

The Public Health Accreditation Board defines a community health improvement plan as a long-term, systematic effort to address public health problems on the basis of the results of community health assessment activities and the community health improvement process. This plan is used by health and other governmental education and human service agencies, in collaboration with community partners, to set priorities and coordinate and target resources. A community health improvement plan is critical for developing policies and defining actions to target efforts that promote health. It should define the vision for the health of the community through a collaborative process and should address the gamut of strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities that exist in the community to improve the health status of that community.
—Public Health Accreditation Board Acronyms and Glossary of Terms Version 1.0 Cdc-pdf[PDF – 536KB]External, July 2011, as adapted from Healthy People 2010External and CDC’s National Public Health Performance Standards Program.

Reference:

• https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/cha/plan.html