Breaking Down the C-H-N-A

For 30 years, PRC has been a leading provider of Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA). CHNAs outline a story of the communities they describe with valuable insights and tangible metrics. To fully understand our CHNA approach, take a moment to go through the acronym, picture your community at each letter, and imagine the impact that your organization can lead with the insights revealed.

Community

The core of a CHNA is connecting with the community your organization serves. PRC has partnered with over 550 hospitals and health systems, public health departments, non-profits, and collaboratives across the country, representing a third of the US population covered by a PRC CHNA. However, for every CHNA we conduct, we approach each community with the same unique attention to detail, knowing that no two populations are the same. In addition to population surveys led by our trained interviewers, we connect with local stakeholders and key informants in your community, bringing firsthand knowledge to contextualize your data and give you a nuanced understanding of your community health.

Health

With healthcare the primary focus of our research solutions, PRC’s community health team ensures your CHNA covers all the bases in exploring health topics and themes relevant to your population. PRC’s CHNA defines “health” to include not only traditional measures of health outcomes, but also the distribution of those outcomes within the community (health equity), behavioral health, as well as contributing factors such as social determinants of health (e.g., ACEs, housing, transportation, etc.).

Our team approaches each CHNA with sensitivity and expertise, as seen in our National Health Survey research. Since 1995, PRC has conducted regular national studies to identify health trends and provide comparative national benchmarks to our CHNA clients. We release findings from our National Health Survey as downloadable briefs on our Insights page; view our library of briefs here.

Needs

With the community health data collected, the goal of a PRC CHNA is to identify significant health needs and disparities and highlight opportunities to improve community health through organizational initiatives. We strive to give a voice to underserved populations and support equity through the insights we uncover. Previous CHNAs by our client partners have been used in the planning of affordable housing, campaigns geared toward reducing deaths of despair, triaging resources during the pandemic, and developing a multi-purpose hospital and community center. Indeed, CHNA insights are action-driven by nature, striking at the core of inequity to ensure everyone has their health needs met. What can a CHNA reveal about your community?

Assessment

PRC’s thorough data collection and reporting ensures your final CHNA report positions your organization for success now and moving forward. For every client partner, we offer a unique webpage through our proprietary HealthForecast.net? service for you to readily share your CHNA findings, fulfilling IRS Section 501(r)(3) requirements for public dissemination. Further, client partners can continue to analyze their CHNA survey data through PRCEasyView.com?, our all-in-one reporting platform with drill-down tools to lead ad-hoc analyses and get the most value out of their survey data.

If your organization is due for a CHNA in the coming year, fill out our connection form or contact us at [email protected] to schedule a call with our community health team.