For your Final Project, you will be conducting a truncated community health systems analysis on the town in which you live. Generally, these analyses typically take months to complete, and the resulting final report can easily exceed 20 pages in length. As you do not have the benefit of that time, you will be conducting a topic analysis based on existing information and conversations (i.e., phone, face-to-face, and email conversations) with those in positions of influence in your community.  To assist you in your process, explore the Community Health Assessment and Improvement Planning (Links to an external site.) Web page. This Web page can provide many helpful tools and examples should be you become challenged on a particular requirement of this exercise.

In order to address the items in the directives for your final assignment, focus on the following requirements for your Final Project (much of this information can be pulled from previous assignments and discussions you have completed for this class):  Please use Alameda County

• Greatest strengths and need areas of your community, how you assessed the areas of strength and need, and the priority for the need areas
• Strongest and weakest health participants in your community (e.g., hospitals, clinics, etc.)
• Existing community programs that likely cost the most and likely cost the least
• Most effective and least effective community health programs
• Most effective and least effective local hospital health programs
• Factors in your community that exist to support your efforts (e.g., existing health coalitions, mayors support, etc.)
• Challenges that your community faces in taking action (e.g., geographic location, population makeup, budget, etc.)
• National organizations that would likely show interest in supporting your need areas
• Describe how you collected data on the social and/or multiple determinants of health and/or health inequities in your analysis
• Include how you would approach your local health department with your findings
• Include how you would disseminate your findings to the community
• Include how you would engage community partners in your efforts
• Describe how you would utilize quality improvement tools to sustain and/or maintain any changes you implement
• Identify some areas for improvement in your Final Project
• Identify the greatest strength of your Final Project
• Identify the greatest challenge in completing your Final Project

For your community health systems analysis you will

• Identify community strengths and areas for improvement.
• Identify the status of community health needs.
• Define improvement areas to guide the community towards population-based strategies that create a healthier environment (e.g., increased physical activity, improved nutrition, reduced tobacco use and exposure, and chronic disease management).
• Prioritize community needs, and consider appropriate allocation of available resources.