The IHS HP/DP staff have organized resources that will be of most interest to AI/AN communities below. In the Future, the HP/DP program would like to add a Community Health Assessment generator and Community Health Assessment online training. For more information on Community Health Assessment tools, click on the IHS HP/DP Community Assessment Tool Presentation link below.

AI/AN specific Community Health Assessment Tools



	Community Health Assessment Tool Generator (In Draft) Community health assessments are both documents and processes; the documents might be called a Community Health Assessment or Community Health Profile. Regardless of the name, these documents help prioritize limited resources addressing the health of the community. For example, addressing the most common (i.e., the leading) causes of death, and other common causes that result in the loss in the quality of a person’s life, might have the greatest impact on the health of the community. Some of these Assessment/Profile documents are based on death or clinical (e.g., RPMS) data. Occasionally, communities want to understand the health of their community through a survey or focus group; this tool was developed to assist communities in that process.
	Indian Community Health Profile Tool kit Project staff from the Northwest Portland (Ore.) Area Indian Health Board worked with local Native American health leaders to revise and pilot test a newly created Indian Community Health Profile, which local tribes can use to assess the health status of the tribal community and monitor its progress over time. This project was originally supported by the Indian Health Service and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as identified in this report .
	HPDP Program Planning Guidebook (428 KB) The primary purpose of the Community Program Planning Guidebook is to offer those working in the health care field basic and consistent guidelines to systematically develop, implement and evaluate health programs. This guide provides a framework for developing a sound program plan which focuses on meeting the community’s needs. The guidebook was developed by the Nashville Area Indian Health Service and United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc.
	Restoring Balance Restoring Balance trains local leaders in health promotion and community development, empowering them to deal with serious health and other issues in their communities. The new Restoring Balance manual might be considered as a culturally tailored way to complete a number of the steps of a Community Health Assessment. For example, Restoring Balance helps mobilize the community (e.g., community organization) and helps communities envision what they want the health of the community to be (e.g., health planning). However, Restoring Balance does not include detailed methods of conducting data collection and analytical steps (e.g., focus groups, population surveys, etc...); therefore, additional resources will be needed to accomodate the Restoring Balance manual when considering community assessments.
	Everybody Wins: Involving Youth in Community Needs Assessment Community Health Assessments require large amounts of resources. This article presents a strategy for integrating community service learning with community development. It builds upon two methods in rural development: needs assessment and incorporating public schools in the development process. The strategy provides a way to conduct a valid needs assessment using survey research methods, while keeping costs low and involvement of local people high. It also provides an opportunity for students to have classroom and experiential learning on community development and needs assessment. This strategy has been tested in Florida and Kentucky.
	HP/DP Fact Sheet PowerPoint Presentation Slides (Last revised 3/2009) (131 KB) Thirteen slides focused on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention are provided to be incorporated in presentations given by tribal leaders. Descriptive notes are in the Presenter Notes field and were designed to allow reading aloud as presenting the slides, a basis for revision to a targeted audience, or text revised and translated in local laguages and delivered to the community.
	IHS HP/DP Community Assessment Tool Presentation (12/2008) (3.1 MB) Presentation to talk about the Community Health Assessment project at the IHS HP/DP program and coordinating activities with the 12 Tribal Epidemiologic Centers and the IHS National Tribal Epidemiology Program.


Other Community Health Assessment Tools



	New York State Community Health Assessment Clearinghouse The New York State Community Health Assessment Clearinghouse provides tools to allow local communities to work through the steps (NY uses 10 steps) to complete assessments. Detailed steps, included worksheets, are available for download from this website.
	The Community Tool Box (Kansas) The Community Tool Box is the world's largest resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. It offers more than 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement, and is growing as a global resource for this work. Assessments fall under "2. Assessing Community Needs and Resources" of the "Do the Work" link on the Tool Box homepage.
	Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) is a community-driven strategic planning tool for improving community health. Facilitated by public health leaders, this tool helps communities apply strategic thinking to prioritize public health issues and identify resources to address them. MAPP is not an agency-focused assessment tool; rather, it is an interactive process that can improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and ultimately the performance of local public health systems.
	Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) is an interactive system that allows the user to create and download tables, based on selected variables from the various state data files. While MICA is specific to Missouri, this might give communities ideas of different sources of data during the data collection step of community assessment.
	Community Needs Assessment Tools A general Community Needs Assessment Tools PowerPoint presentation describing different types of assessments.


Data Analysis



	IHS HP/DP Wellness Data Wellness statistics were complied by the IHS HP/DP staff and provided on the Director's initiatives pages. These statistics support the prevalence of healthy behaviors in American Indians and Alaskana Natives. Also available at the bottom of the page is a map with links to AI/AN specific statistics by region of the United States. PowerPoint presentation slides with presenter notes are available for use and might assist the Health Planning Committee in Assessment activities (e.g., deciding which data to collect with regards to HP/DP).
	CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Program The CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) is an interactive database system that provides customized reports of injury-related data from the national Center of Health Statistics (NCHS) and the violent death data from NCIPC's National Violent Death Reporting System. This system is commonly used among AI/AN communities to produce national estimates of the Leading Causes of Death Reports and Leading Causes of Years of Potential Life Lost sample. The WISQARS program totals all deaths and YPLLs on reports when choosing more than one year; persons interested in obtaining the average over a multi-year period will need to divide by the number of years in the report. Click on the following links for a Leading Causes of Death Among American Indian and Alaskan Natives, US -- 2001-2005 Report (18 KB) or for a Years of Potential Life Lost Among American Indians and Alaskan Natives, US -- 2001-2005 Report (33 KB)
	Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) is an interactive system that allows the user to create and download tables, based on selected variables from the various state data files. While MICA is specific to Missouri, this might give communities ideas of different sources of data during the data collection step of community assessment.
	The Epi Info™ Community Health Assessment Tutorial This tutorial introduces you to the basic concepts of Epi Info™ with a series of ten lessons plus an Intermediate Analysis lesson that covers more advanced concepts. The survey and datasets presented here relate to Community Health Assessments, and specifically Asthma; however, they can be used to teach the Epi Info™ program to any user, and to illustrate how the program can be used to gather, analyze, and present data. The Epi Info™ Community Health Assessment Tutorial was produced by the collaborative efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Assessment Initiative (AI), and the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH).
	CDC EZ-Text Software "CDC EZ-Text" is a software program developed to assist researchers create, manage, and analyze semi-structured qualitative databases. This would be helpful for structured analysis of formal interviews or focus groups. Copies of the EZ-Text software and user documentation can be downloaded free of charge from this web site.