Task 11

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Module 4 — Task 11: Set Priorities for Action

At the completion of this task, the assessment team should have:

A statement about the community’s environmental health priorities for action

Once issues have been ranked, it still may be necessary to determine which are most important for action. Again, locally specific criteria that reflect community values can be used. Prioritizing issues allows the community to direct resources, time, and energy to those issues that are deemed most critical and practical to address.

Priority setting differs from ranking in that it takes into account a range of other factors within the community. Environmental health concerns, if they are to be addressed, must be evaluated within the context of public perception of risk (explored during the ranking process) as well as the constraints and opportunities presented by the community’s unique scientific, legal, economic, social, and political systems. It is therefore a more subjective process.

Priority setting also considers local issues in the context of county, state, national, and international influences; for some issues, local ability to effectively address the issue may be relatively low, despite significant concern. Understanding the degree to which local action can effect change, as identified in this task, has implications for action plan development (Task 12).

Click the following links to skip to each section:

»	Determine Local Priority-Setting Criteria
»	Select a Method for Prioritizing
»	Determine Priorities

Determine Local Priority-Setting Criteria

This sample priority setting worksheet [link to worksheet] is designed to guide the process by using criteria other than magnitude, severity, and distribution (considered in the ranking process) to evaluate the issues deemed most important in Task 10. The goal of the process is to decide the feasibility of addressing each issue. These criteria should be reviewed by the assessment team and revised as needed to reflect the values of the community.

Select a Method for Prioritizing

Use the worksheet provided (or one developed by the assessment team) to evaluate issues determined through the ranking process to be of “high concern.” As in the previous task, the worksheet can be filled out as a group or individually. Discussion and consensus building and/or use of group decision-making techniques can be used to develop a composite of individual evaluations. Assign numerical weights to the criteria and to the qualitative column headings as appropriate to reflect the relative importance of each. Then quantify the results of the exercise by multiplying the weight assigned to the criteria by the numerical equivalent of the column heading. Each person’s opinion can then be represented with an overall numerical score. The resulting scores are easily comparable and can be averaged or mathematically manipulated in any way the team considers appropriate.

The process may be done mathematically or more qualitatively, by simply engaging in discussion about the role of community factors in determining environmental health priorities. Use the above method, or devise an alternate one more appropriate to the community’s needs.

Determine Priorities

The method used should result in the identification of a manageable number of priority issues. For example, one means of determining the top priorities is to select the three issues receiving the highest scores. In Task 12, action plans will be developed for these top issues only. Alternately, the team may choose to develop action plans for all issues ranked highly in Task 10 and to use the priority-setting process solely as a means of deciding the order in which the issues will be addressed.

Questions to Consider:

Describe "Prioritizing" in regards to a PACE EH process. What is the difference between "ranking" and "prioritizing?"