Community Health Tools

AI/AN-specific Community Health Assessment Tools

• Everybody Wins: Involving Youth in Community Needs Assessment Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  This article presents a strategy for integrating community service learning with rural community development by using needs assessment and incorporating public schools in the development process.
• Indian Community Health Profile Tool kit [PDF - 2.24 MB]Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  Project staff from the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board worked with local Native American health leaders to test an Indian Community Health Profile, which local tribes can use to assess the health status of the community and monitor progress over time.
• Restoring Balance [PDF - 2.8 MB]Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  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 manual does not include detailed methods of conducting data collection, however, so additional resources will be needed to conduct community assessments.

Other Community Health Assessment Tools

• The Community Tool Box Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  From the University of Kansas, The Community Tool Box offers more than 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement. 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) Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  MAPP is a community-driven strategic planning tool for improving efficiency, effectiveness, and performance of local public health systems. This tool helps communities apply strategic thinking to prioritize public health issues and identify resources to address them.

Data Analysis Tools

• CDC EZ-Text Software Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  CDC EZ-Text is a program developed to assist researchers create, manage, and analyze semi-structured qualitative databases, helpful for structured analysis of formal interviews or focus groups.
• The Epi Info™ Community Health Assessment Tutorial Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  This tutorial introduces you to the basic concepts of Epi Info™ with a series of ten lessons plus an Intermediate Analysis lesson that covers how the program can be used to gather, analyze, and present data.
• CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Program Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov 
  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 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. WISQARS totals all deaths and YPLLs on reports when choosing more than one year; to obtain a multi-year average, divide by the number of years in the report. Also available are a Leading Causes of Death Among American Indian and Alaskan Natives, US -- 2001-2005 Report [PDF - 31 KB]Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov  and a Years of Potential Life Lost Among American Indians and Alaskan Natives, US -- 2001-2005 Report [PDF - 46 KB]Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov