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Community Health Needs Assessment

School Health Assessment

Nationwide, communities are seeking to understand and address the health needs of their children. But effective community action depends on being able to integrate local data on children's health problems with knowledge of the community's current health care infrastructure.

PHRG has developed a comprehensive method for providing just such integrated information: The Youth Health Status and Service Needs Assessment. The Assessment is based on the work of Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH and Anne Riley, Ph.D. of John Hopkins University, with whom PHRG has a close working relationship. The Assessment employs measures of physical, mental, and emotional well being to characterize health status of young children through adolescence.

Adolescent health is a special focus of the Youth Health Status and Service Needs Assessment. We use an innovative, proprietary survey. The confidential, self-administered questionnaire examines:

• Physical health symptoms, conditions and limitations;
• Sexual behavior;
• Alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use;
• Mental health symptoms;
• School behaviors;
• Suicide attempts or other self-inflicted attempts at harm;
• Eating disorders;
• Violent behaviors;
• Dietary habits;
• Injuries;
• Physical fitness; and
• Family environment.

Implementation of the Youth Health Status and Service Needs Assessment can be tailored to meet local needs and can include:

• A comprehensive health status profile of the children aged 0-17 in the community;
• An understanding of the health service needs of children in the community;
• An evaluation of the current service delivery system;
• Service recommendations designed to improve the health status of children;
• Baseline utilization and outcome indicator data useful to target specific service interventions; and
• A care plan that promotes integrated delivery of health services and preventive care.

Results and reports from the Youth Health Status and Service Needs Assessment are always written so as to be easily understood by community advocacy groups, city councils, health planners, and health care administrators.