Accreditation Preparation: Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan Prerequisites

Resource Center for Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans

The Resource Center for Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans (CHA/CHIP Resource Center) provides practical, customizable tools; resources, including CHA and CHIP examples and case studies; and webinar trainings to LHDs to assist them in completing a community health improvement process and is updated regularly. More »

The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) launched its voluntary national accreditation program for public health departments in September 2011. This program requires local health departments (LHDs) to submit three prerequisites, developed within five years prior, as part of the application process: 1) a community health assessment (CHA), 2) a community health improvement plan (CHIP), and 3) an agency strategic plan.

NACCHO is committed to assisting LHDs in successful accreditation applications, and from July 2011 - December 2012 coordinated the "Accreditation Preparation: Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan" (CHA/CHIP) project, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Focused on two of the three PHAB prerequisites, the effort aimed to:

Increase the readiness of LHDs to apply for national accreditation;
Build the capacity of LHDs to engage in a community health improvement process that yields a CHA and CHIP that satisfy PHAB's prerequisite requirements;
Model meaningful LHD collaboration with local public health system (LPHS) partners in the community health improvement process; and
Generate exemplary CHAs and CHIPs that model engaging the community in a meaningful way, addressing the social determinants of health, and using quality improvement (QI) and quality planning techniques.

The cornerstone of the CHA/CHIP project was to support a community of LHD demonstration sites (representative of LHDs across the country and with varying levels of experience) that developed CHAs and CHIPs. The 12 demonstration sites can be found here. Moreover, NACCHO is working with national public health partners to facilitate CHA and CHIP work in collaboration with LHDs among their respective constituencies.

NACCHO is committed to supporting all LHDs in their CHA/CHIP efforts by making the tools, resources, CHAs and CHIPs, and case studies of the CHA/CHIP demonstration sites available in a public, online resource center. Visit the CHA/CHIP Resource Center here.

Please contact CHACHIP@naccho.org if you have any questions.