Description
Please read the following: Healthy People in Healthy Communities, or A Strategy for Creating a Healthy Community: MAP-IT, so that you will understand the MAP-IT program before you start this SLP. Also please read this article: Melany Mack, Ron Uken, Jane Powers (2006) People Improving the Community’s Health: Community Health Workers as Agents of Change, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Nashville: Feb 2006. Vol. 17, Iss. 1; p. 16 (10 pages). To begin to achieve the goal of improving health, a community must develop a strategy. That strategy, to be successful, must be supported by many individuals who are working together.
In much the same way you might map out a trip to a new place, you can use the MAP-IT technique to ‘map out’ the path toward the change you want to see in your community.
For the Session Long Project (SLP) of this course, you will follow this family:
An English-speaking American family located in Prince George’s County, MD. The parents (42-year-old father and a 40-year-old mother) have two children, a 14-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter. They (the parents) are obese, smokers, and have a history of heavy drug use in their late teen and early adult years. The father has only a high school education while the mother has a BA in English Literature. Due to their weight, the mother has diabetes and high blood pressure, and the father has high blood pressure and liver aliments. The son suffers from asthma while the daughter has had two previous abortions. She may be drug dependent. The parents are a moderate-low income family with minimal insurance. You will guide the parents on how to achieve the minimum state health requirements for both the children and themselves (i.e., vaccinations, good nutrition, a safe and healthy home environment, etc.).
Module 3 tasks: 5 pages (not including title and reference page), 5 peer-reviewed reference citations, double spaced, APA format, Introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
For this module you will discuss how you will plan your approach. Be sure to reference and use resources in Prince George’s County, MD
Start with a vision of where you want the community to be, and then add strategies and action steps to help you achieve that vision.
You can be a health educator, a health care provider, a nutritionist, a social worker, etc. However, base your vision and approach on your targeted family located in Prince George’s County, MD.
Additionally, be sure to focus on the health issues related to your targeted family located in Prince George’s County, MD.
Module 4 tasks: 5 pages (not including title and reference page), 5 peer-reviewed reference citations, double spaced, APA format, Introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
Be sure to reference and use resources in Prince George’s County, MD
Discuss how you will implement your plan using concrete action steps that can be monitored and will make a difference. Discuss how you will track your progress over time. Present any tables or charts if you believe they will assist you in effectively tracking your progress (and of course, the progress of the target family). Provide sufficient detail.
SLP Module Requirements
You are to use MAP-IT: Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Track to respond to this SLP.
Before you begin the SLP please review: Choosing the Right Approach for Health
Steps in MAP-IT are:
Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about the health of your community into a coalition.
Assess the areas of greatest need in your community, in this case, assisting new immigrants to access health care], as well as the resources and other strengths that you can tap into in order to address those areas.
Plan your approach: start with a vision of where you want to be as a community, then add strategies and action steps to help you achieve that vision: you can be a health educator, a health care provider, a nutritionist, a social worker etc.
Implement your plan using concrete action steps that can be monitored and will make a difference.
Track your progress over time.
KEY Criteria for this SLP
In addition to demonstrating that you are applying the MAP-IT steps, you must demonstrate personal development or competency in developing appropriate objectives for your targeted family based on needs and the ability to appraise the appropriateness of resources and materials required to meet their needs. You should also incorporate the results of the needs assessment of your targeted family into the planning process within MAP-IT. This is why it is so important to identify an actual community that your targeted family resides. You will find that almost all of the resources found or available in a community can be identified online.
Using this MAP-IT approach, a step-by-step, structured plan can be devised to tailor one’s community needs.
The first step in building a healthier community is to mobilize key individuals and organizations to form a community-wide coalition. Most communities already have health departments and other governmental agencies that are responsible for public health services. Many communities also have coalitions of key individuals and organizations that are organized to address specific issues, for example, block associations or neighborhood watch groups. These groups often represent diverse interests and resources for addressing issues that are vital to building and maintaining the health and stability of the entire community. A coalition will often, of course, work with the health department and other health organizations in the community. However, it can also help mobilize a wider range of other resources to address health issues.
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Healthy People
in
Healthy
Communities
A Community Planning Guide Using
Healthy People 2010
Dear Community Leader:
More than 20 years ago the Nation embarked on a significant
journey to make our communities healthier and happier places.
Using the HEALTHY PEOPLE Initiative, which began in 1979, we have
learned that we can make a difference. The current phase, HEALTHY
PEOPLE 2010, has two overarching goals: to increase the quality and
years of healthy life of all Americans and to eliminate disparities in
health status. Its vision is deceptively simple: Healthy People in
Healthy Communities. But to reach these goals, to achieve this
vision, we must all work together–individuals and communities
alike.
The road to improving health for all is wrought with obstacles. We
cannot let our resolve fail. We must continue to work together to
make certain the benefits of health are available to all.
This guide is designed to help you—someone who has decided to
make your community a healthier place to live. This guide provides
information about the steps involved in forming and running a
healthy community coalition. It also includes “Strategies for Success,” to help you get activities started in your community, plus
resources, references, and a one page ‘quick-aid’ with hints for
putting HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 to work for your community.
I applaud your efforts thus far and challenge you to forge ahead on
the journey toward our ultimate destination, becoming an entire
Nation of Healthy People.
Sincerely yours,
David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Surgeon General
Healthy People
in
Healthy
Communities
A Community Planning Guide Using
Healthy People 2010
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Office of Public Health and Science
Department of Health and Human Services
Acknowledgments
This publication was developed by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion (ODPHP) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Primary authors: Matthew Guidry, Tom Vischi, Raymond Han, and Omar
Passons. Additional assistance was provided by Randolph F. Wykoff, Linda
Meyers, Debbie Maiese, Janice T. Radak, Mary Jo Deering, Gloria Barnes, Tami
Lambert, and Valere Byrd. In addition, the contributions of the following reviewers are greatly appreciated:
Phillip Caillouet
Health Informatics Center of Acadiana
University of Louisiana
Melissa Clarke
Health Resources and Services
Administration/HHS
Regan Crump
Health Resources and Services
Administration/HHS
Michael Hatcher
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention/ HHS
Tim Jeffries
U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development
John Kesler
Coalition for Healthier Cities and
Communities
Kathy Kremer
Senior Management Assistant
Anne Arundel County
Marilyn Layman
Superintendent of Schools
De Soto, Kansas
Sigrid Melus
Office of National Drug Control Policy
White House
Marc Meringoff
The Fordham Institute
II
Tyler Norris
Community Initiatives
Emmeline Ochiai
Public Health Advisor
Office of Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion/HHS
Steve Potsic
Regional Health Administrator/HHS
Ruth Sanchez-Way
Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention/ HHS
Alvin Schexnider
Office of Health Policy Development
Wake Forest University
Jerry Schultz
Work Group on Health Promotion and
Community Development
University of Kansas
Valerie Welsh
Office of Minority Health/HHS
Richard Young
Regional Health Administrator/HHS
Sharon Zolner
Assistant Superintendent of Schools
De Soto, Kansas
Table of Contents
I. Is Yours a Healthy Community?
1
What Is a Healthy Community? …………………………………………… 1
What Is HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010? ……………………………………………. 2
II. A Strategy for Creating a Healthy Community: MAP-IT
7
Mobilize Key Individuals and Organizations …………………………… 8
Assess Community Needs, Strengths, and Resources ……………….12
Plan for Action ………………………………………………………………….15
Implement the Action Plan ………………………………………………….18
Track Progress and Outcomes ……………………………………………..20
I’ve Learned About MAP-IT. Now What? ………………………………21
III. Strategies for Success:
23
Community Members ………………………………………………………..23
Health Professionals …………………………………………………………..24
Local Government and University Partners …………………………….25
References and Resources
27
Appendices
30
Appendix A:
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 Leading Health Indicators ……………….30
Appendix B:
Select HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 Objectives for Communities ……32
Access to Health Care …………………………………………………..33
Worksites ……………………………………………………………………34
Schools ………………………………………………………………………34
Environmental Health …………………………………………………..36
Health Communication …………………………………………………36
III
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People in Healthy Communities.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 2001.
IV
I. Is Yours a Healthy Community?
Are the people in your community as healthy and safe as they could
be? If not, would you like to change that? This guide can help you
make positive changes in your community, whether you are a
physician, government official, business owner, truck driver, store
clerk, retired person, or almost anybody
else.
Indeed, this guide can help you:
Learn how to build and run a healthy
community coalition;
Find information about your community
on many health problems, such as drug
abuse, teen pregnancy, depression, and infectious disease; and
Use HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 to improve the quality of life of the
people in your community.
But, first, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Because deciding
to make this kind of change is an important first step to making your
community a healthier and happier place in which to live, work, and
play. And because YOU can make a difference!
What Is a Healthy Community?
A healthy community is one that embraces the belief that health is
more than merely an absence of disease; a healthy community
includes those elements that enable people to maintain a high quality
of life and productivity. For example:
n
A healthy community offers access to health care services that
focus on both treatment and prevention for all members of the
community.
n
A healthy community is safe.
1
n
A healthy community has
roads, schools, playgrounds,
and other services to meet the
needs of the people in that
community. (These items are
often referred to as
“infrastructure.”)
Goal I: Increase Quality
and Years of Healthy Life
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 seeks
to increase life expectancy
and quality of life by helping
individuals gain the
knowledge, motivation, and
opportunities they need to
n
A healthy community has a
make informed decisions
healthy and safe environment.
about their health. At the
same time, HEALTHY PEOPLE
2010
encourages local and
What Is HEALTHY PEOPLE
State leaders to develop
2010?
communitywide and
statewide efforts that
One tool to help a community
promote healthy behaviors,
create a dynamic vision for its
create healthy environments,
future is HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010.
and increase access to highHEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 is a comquality health care. Given the
prehensive set of health objectives fact that individual and
to be achieved over the first
community health are often
inseparable, it is critical that
decade of the century. It is deboth the individual and the
signed to serve as a roadmap for
improving the health of all people community do their parts to
increase life expectancy and
in the United States. It includes
improve quality of life.
national health promotion and
Healthy People 2010: Understanding and
Improving Health, 2nd Edition, November 2000.
disease prevention goals, objectives, and measures that can help
serve as a model for you to develop your own goals and objectives to
improve the health of everyone in your community.
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 was developed by citizens from throughout
the Nation, in a multiyear process that was coordinated by the U. S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For two decades,
HHS has used HEALTHY PEOPLE objectives to improve the health of
the American people. HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 is the third set of health
promotion and disease prevention objectives for the Nation.
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 is designed to achieve two overarching goals:
(1) to increase the quality and years of healthy life and (2) to elimi2
Goal II: Eliminate Health
Disparities
nate health disparities. (A health
disparity is a gap in the health
status of different groups of
people, in which one group is
healthier than the other group or
groups.) These two goals are
supported by 467 objectives in
28 focus areas. For details, see
www.health.gov/healthypeople/
document/tableofcontents.htm.
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010
recognizes that communities,
States, and national
organizations will need to
take a multidisciplinary
approach to achieve health
equity–an approach that
involves improving health,
education, housing, labor,
justice, transportation,
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 also
agriculture, and the
identifies a smaller set of health
environment, as well as data
collection itself. However, the priorities that reflect 10 major
greatest opportunities for
public health concerns in the
reducing health disparities
United States.These 10 topics
are in promoting
highlight individual behaviors,
communitywide safety,
physical and social environmeneducation, and access to
tal factors, and important health
health care, and in
system issues that greatly affect
empowering individuals to
make informed health care
the health of individuals and
decisions.
communities. Examined toHEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 is firmly gether, they constitute a set of
dedicated to the principle
“Leading Health Indicators” that
that–regardless of age,
provides a snapshot of the health
gender, race or ethnicity,
of the Nation and serves to
income, education,
provide guidance and focus for
geographic location,
the public, media, and elected
disability, or sexual
officials.
orientation–every person in
every community across the
Nation deserves equal
access to comprehensive, A health disparity is an inequality
or gap that exists between two
culturally competent,
or more groups. Health
community-based health
disparities are believed to be the
care systems that are
result of the complex interaction
committed to serving the
needs of the individual and of personal, societal, and,
promoting community health. environmental factors.
Healthy People 2010: Understanding and
Improving Health, 2nd Edition, November 2000.
3
In a Snapshot…
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 identifies a set of health priorities that reflect 10
major public health concerns in the United States. These 10 Leading
Health Indicators are intended to help everyone more easily understand the importance of health promotion and disease prevention.
Motivating individuals to act on just one of the indicators can have a
profound effect on increasing the quality and years of healthy life and
on eliminating health disparities–for the individual, as well as the
community overall.
Subject/Topic
Public Health Challenge
Physical Activity
Promote regular physical activity.
Overweight and Obesity
Promote healthier weight and
good nutrition.
Tobacco Use
Prevent and reduce tobacco use.
Substance Abuse
Prevent and reduce substance
abuse.
Responsible Sexual Behavior
Promote responsible sexual
behavior.
Mental Health
Promote mental health and
well-being.
Injury and Violence
Promote safety and reduce
violence.
Environmental Quality
Promote healthy environments.
Immunization
Prevent infectious disease
through immunization.
Access to Health Care
Increase access to quality health
care.
For more on the Leading Health Indicators, go to
http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/LHI.
4
You can select from one or more
chapters in Healthy People 2010
or use the Leading Health
Indicators to help shape your
own visions of where you want
your community to be in the
future. These broad visions can
help shape your efforts to improve the health of your
community.
You can use a variety of techniques, documents, and other
resources to help you make a
healthy community. This guide
will briefly describe some easyto-understand approaches that
can help you get started or help
you improve what you have
already started.
5
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010: 28 Focus Areas
1. Access to Quality Health
Services
15. Injury and Violence
Prevention
2. Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and
Chronic Back Conditions
16. Maternal, Infant, and Child
Health
3. Cancer
17. Medical Product Safety
4. Chronic Kidney Disease
18. Mental Health and Mental
Disorders
5. Diabetes
6. Disability and Secondary
Conditions
7. Educational and
Community-Based
Programs
6
19. Nutrition and Overweight
20. Occupational Safety and
Health
21. Oral Health
8. Environmental Health
22. Physical Activity and
Fitness
9. Family Planning
23. Public Health Infrastructure
10. Food Safety
24. Respiratory Diseases
11. Health Communication
12. Heart Disease and Stroke
25. Sexually Transmitted
Diseases
13. HIV
26. Substance Abuse
14. Immunization and
Infectious Diseases
27. Tobacco Use
28. Vision and Hearing
II. A Strategy for Creating a Healthy Community
To begin to achieve the goal of improving health, a community must
develop a strategy. That strategy, to be successful, must be supported
by many individuals who are working together.
In much the same way you might map out a trip to a new place, you
can use the MAP-IT technique to ‘map out’ the path toward the
change you want to see in your community.
The process of creating a healthy community will take time, much
effort, and many steps. This guide recommends that you MAP-IT–
that is, Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Track. This MAP-IT
approach will help you understand and remember the specific steps
you will need to take and the order in which you should take them.
Keep in mind, though, that there is no one way to do this, and many
of these steps will need to be taken again and again.
Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about
the health of your community into a coalition.
Assess the areas of greatest need in your community, as
well as the resources and other strengths that you can tap
into to address those areas.
Plan your approach: start with a vision of where you
want to be as a community; then add strategies and
action steps to help you achieve that vision.
Implement your plan using concrete action steps that
can be monitored and will make a difference.
Track your progress over time.
7
Using this MAP-IT approach, your coalition can devise a step-bystep, structured plan that is tailored to your community’s needs.
MOBILIZE Key Individuals and Organizations
Mobilize individuals and organizations into a community coalition that cares about the health of
its community.
A public health nurse in a
small New England suburban community is greatly
concerned about the alarming increase in obesity in
school-aged children. She
needs action models and
guidance she can use to
help her mobilize the community and put together a
healthy weight educational
program to use in the
community and in the local
public schools. The nurse
needs to mobilize others in
her community to act.
The first step in building a
healthier community is to
mobilize key individuals and
organizations to form a
communitywide coalition. Most
communities already have health
departments and other governmental agencies that are responsible for public health services.
Many communities also have
coalitions of key individuals and
organizations that have organized
to address specific issues, for example, block associations or neighborhood watch groups. These groups often represent diverse interests and resources for addressing issues that are vital to building and
maintaining the health and stability of the entire community. A
coalition will often, of course, work with the health department and
other health organizations in the community. However, it can also
help mobilize a wider range of other resources to address health issues.
How do you organize such a coalition in your community? Usually,
it is easier to engage potential coalition members around issues that
are already of special concern to them and the community. Successful community coalitions have been built, for example, around
8
special issues such as substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy,
maternal and child health, environmental health, domestic violence,
and neighborhood crime.
Coalitions have also been built around a broader range of issues, not
all of which have yet become of the highest concern to community
leaders. It is recommended that you have sufficient data to show
community leaders that these issues are of real and immediate
importance.
While it is sometimes possible to start building a coalition with a
very general communitywide event (such as a town hall meeting or a
media event), it is often necessary to target specific individuals and
organizations and to work with them over a period of time until they
become committed to working with you and others in the coalition.
Individuals. Many effective coalitions are built around a core of
committed individuals. Coalition members must be willing to work,
express themselves openly, and serve as catalysts to improve community conditions. The real key is to have members who have the
energy, commitment, and willingness to collaborate with others to
inspire and sustain action. Coalition members can be more easily
motivated to work hard when they work in areas that they know are
directly affecting their lives.
Organizations. Many individuals in effective coalitions come from
and represent community organizations. These community organizations can include religious institutions, businesses, schools, social
service programs, hospitals, clinics, community groups, unions, and
the like. Local organizations are valuable because of their influence,
their resources, their involvement in the community, and the respect
they command. They can support needed actions and they can
mobilize resources to help implement such actions.
9
Helpful Hint: Talk to local businesses, charities, and religious
organizations. They can be great members of your team.
One of the biggest challenges in creating a healthy community
coalition is to sustain the members’ involvement in the process. This
challenge can be overcome in part by agreeing as early as possible
on a vision for the community.
Creating a vision: Your vision should originate from your
community’s most important needs, values, and goals. It should be
an idealized description of how your coalition would like your
community to be. It should reflect the goals of the members of the
coalition, and it should be consistent with their values.
Indiana – Healthy Hoosiers
The challenge of Healthy Hoosiers 2000 is to use the combined
strength of scientific knowledge, professional skill, individual
commitment, community support, and political will in order to
enable the citizens of Indiana to achieve their potential to live
full, active lives. It means preventing premature death and
preventing disability, preserving a physical environment that
supports human life, cultivating family and community support,
enhancing each individual’s inherent abilities to respond and to
act, and assuring that all Hoosiers achieve and maintain a maximum level of functioning.
Healthy Hoosiers 2000: Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives, 1992.
10
The vision can be created at the very start of the process–for example, when you are mobilizing others to work with you. Creating
the vision early on allows all members of the coalition to feel committed to the long-term process. There may be disagreements
because of the different values or different expectations of various
community leaders. It is important, nevertheless, for the coalition to
work toward a consensus on the vision and to enter the next stage in
the process with a common mission.
Roseville, California – California Healthy
City Coalition
“We recognize that health improvement involves more than the
diagnosis and treatment of disease. Rather, health results from
the proper care of body, mind and spirit. To accomplish our
vision, we will adopt a new view of health. We will shift from
health care providers to the community for visionary direction;
we will shift from State and Federal control, to local control; we
will define health according to wellness instead of illness; we
will focus on prevention and health promotion instead of acute,
episodic treatment; leadership in our community will shift from
autocratic to participative; and program implementation will
shift from vertical to horizontal.”
Profiles of Participating California Healthy Cities and Communities, April 2000.
11
ASSESS Community Needs, Strengths, and Resources
Assess the health issues of
greatest importance in your
community, as well as the
resources and other strengths that
you can tap into to address those
health issues.
An urban core neighborhood in Kansas City,
Missouri, had become
concerned about crime and
safety. The neighborhood
decided to do something,
but wanted to know when
its efforts made a difference. They decided to use
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010
objectives for assaults as
their measure of success,
and they began to collect
crime reports for their
neighborhood.
To get a better sense of what you
can do, versus what you would
like to do, you will need to take
stock of the needs, strengths, and
resources in your community.
Because most healthy community coalitions will have limited
resources to address all their
needs, they must try to use their
resources wisely. When coalition members work together to set
priorities and to allocate resources to those priorities, they are far
more likely to continue to participate in the process and to achieve
measurable results.
Using HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 to get started: Before you can set
priorities, you must first determine what issues you want to improve.
What kinds of things might you look at? Appendix A lists the 10
Leading Health Indicators. These 10 topics represent the major
public health priorities facing this Nation as a whole. Appendix B
offers selected HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010 objectives to give you an idea
of the kinds of health and community safety issues facing the
Nation. After reviewing Appendices A and B and surveying coalition
members, you can identify the health issues that your community
would like to address. So, for example, your coalition may have 5
community-specific topics, plus 23 more from the HEALTHY PEOPLE
12
list that your coalition wants to work on. Can you work on all 28?
Probably not. So, setting priorities becomes a must.
How to set priorities? Because resources for addressing issues will
most likely be limited, your coalition may need to set priorities for
where to begin. Setting priorities should be a matter of consensus; all
coalition members should make an effort to agree on which issues
will be addressed immediately and which will be put off until a
specified later date.
Gathering and evaluating data: Whenever possible, either before or
after you set priorities, gather and evaluate available information
about the major health issues in your community. Data about some
health issues may not be immediately available for your county, city,
or neighborhood. When this happens, your coalition may have to
collect the information for itself. See the inset and Strategies for
Success sections for tips about where you can find the information
you need. Whatever its source, it is important that your coalition
have accurate information about what is really happening in your
community so that you can clearly understand the community’s
needs and create a reasonable target for improvement. Be specific
about who will gather what information from whom and when–and
how it will be reported to the group.
Ideally, your coalition should obtain baseline information on each
issue before it initiates any actions to address those issues. Baseline
information comprises information gathered before an action or
program is started. By comparing this information with information
collected after you have begun some actions, you can determine how
successful your actions have been. Evaluators from a university or
government agency may be able to help your group deal with data
analysis and measurement issues. Documentation of progress can
be a strong tool for enhancing your coalition action.
13
Helpful Hint: Work with your evaluator early and often. This will
help you keep tabs on your community’s program.
Resources: Once you have identified your community’s major areas
of concern and need, develop a list of strengths and resources. The
list can include available technology, communication, “infrastructure” (such as supermarkets, roads, bus lines, housing, and office
space), funding, professional expertise, and data. Don’t think of
money as your only resource. Every community has a wealth of nonmonetary resources that can be used to address areas of concern.
Information, too, is a resource. And a strong partnership with State
and local governmental agencies may help to ensure that the data
you will need are available and obtainable on a timely basis.
Downers Grove, Illinois
“We’ve been able to do some pretty remarkable things without
very much money simply by knowing who had what and who
could share their resources. Good Samaritan Hospital did the
writing, the municipal government did the printing, and the
newspaper did the distribution, and it didn’t cost anybody any
additional money.”
A Message to America from America’s Communities: A Call to Action, January 2000.
The value of working with strong community-based organizations
should not be underestimated. Local businesses, service organizations, medical associations, civic groups, faith communities, and
community leaders are themselves resources that should be identified. Groups such as these are vital to the success of community
efforts–because of what they know about the community as well as
whom they know.
14
PLAN for Action
Once you have set your priorities
and gathered your data, you will
need to plan your approach. This
involves creating an action plan
with concrete steps and deadlines.
With your vision as your guide,
create an action plan with concrete steps that will help you
achieve that vision.
ACTION PLAN:
A social worker in a rural
town is concerned by the
increase in reported child
endangerment cases
attributed to the use of
methamphetamine by
parents. The town has also
seen an increase in the
number of household fires
in trailer park homes. The
social worker contacts local
police officials to help the
local community health
coalition develop an action
plan.
The plan of action should include
action steps, assignment of
responsibility, information
collection, and a timeline. Objectives should have specific targets.
What, specifically, do you want to achieve? For example,
Increase the proportion of adults who engage regularly, preferably daily, in moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes
per day.
Target: 30 percent.
Baseline: 15 percent of adults aged 18 years and older engaged in moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes 5 or
more days per week in 1997 (age adjusted to the year 2000
standard population).
15
The target is a measurable outcome that you want to achieve within
a given amount of time. HEALTHY PEOPLE 2010’s timeframe is the
decade but you may want to work in smaller increments. Wherever
possible, each objective should be measurable. While it is possible to
have a target that cannot be directly measured, such as self-assessed
quality of life, perceived safety, and the like, you will have difficulty
assessing your progress without some degree of measurability. It is
important early on to determine how you will measure such a target
so that you can properly track your progress.
An important note about target setting: Be realistic! If drug abuse is
running at 25 percent among high school kids in your community,
don’t set the target at 0 percent by next year. Setting unrealistic
targets sets you up for a demoralizing failure that can jeopardize
your coalition, as well as your achievement of the vision.
Action steps: What concrete actions will you take to achieve the
target? For example, do you intend to invite the mayor and city or
county council plus local media people to a 5K run/walk to promote
your coalition’s efforts? Could the schools offer “adult nights” at
their athletic facilities? How will you collect data on this? Will you
need monthly reports? How will those be collected and by whom?
Don’t hesitate to spend time–a good deal of time–identifying the
specific action steps needed to reach your desired targets. The more
specific you can be, the better. And recognize that some objectives
may be too big at first glance to achieve in a single action step. For
example, reducing infant mortality is an objective that may require
numerous action steps over several years to achieve a very small
targeted improvement.
Action steps may be developed independently or as part of an overall
strategy. Strategies can be helpful for topics that may be controver16
sial in your community because they allow disparate groups to work
toward the same goal while following unique paths. This approach
allows coalition members to find their own comfort level and still
work as part of the coalition.
Strategies can serve as umbrellas under which all coalition members
can contribute in some way to a given target. And don’t forget to
include ongoing data collection in your action plan–often called
monitoring because it refers to the collection of data.
Assignment of responsibility: Which member or members will
complete which action steps or part of the action steps? For example,
who will take responsibility for planning the 5K run? Who will
create the program to teach abstinence?
The action plan also needs to indicate who will be responsible for
overseeing and following up on specific action steps. Assigning
specific individuals to well-defined and agreed-upon roles will
facilitate the action plan. It also will help the coalition members feel
that they are important parts of the team, with responsibility to fulfill
their roles and help realize the vision.
A timeline: How much time will it take for each part of the plan to
be completed?
An important note about setting deadlines and/or schedules: If it is
February 1, don’t expect to plan a communitywide 5K run by
March 1 and have all the dignitaries there. There simply isn’t enough
time. So be realistic! Maybe by March 1 you could have in place the
list of dignitaries to be invited and your plan for the run. Remember,
failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
17
IMPLEMENT the Action Plan
Initiate action: Once the action
plan is established, coalition
members can begin to implement
the strategies and action steps set
forth in the plan. Coalition members who have accepted responsibility for specific tasks will need
to complete those tasks in a timely
manner, consistent with the
schedule agreed upon in the
action plan.
After the Columbine tragedy, concerned citizens in
Lafayette, Louisiana,
formed a community task
force on the prevention of
violence in schools. In
concert with local school
officials and psychologists,
the task force proposed
closer monitoring of cases
of anger and early intervention with professional help
to defuse potentially dangerous situations. HEALTHY
PEOPLE 2010’s Focus Area
on Injury and Violence
Prevention has been helpful
as a guide for assessing
workable solutions.
This part of the process is helped
by having a diversified and
cooperative group of community
leaders who share the same
vision. For example, having the
school superintendent as a coalition member and supporter of the
healthy community initiative
could make it easier to implement proposed actions in the schools.
Implement your plan by taking concrete actions that will make a
difference.
Another key to implementation is monitoring or routine tracking of
events. For example, if your action plans calls for weekly reports to
be created by a given group on a set topic, monitoring will let you
know that this is, indeed, occurring. A good monitoring system will
help you understand if the action plan is being implemented as
18
anticipated. Also, remember that it is best to plan how to monitor an
initiative before the in
