Phase 4: Identifying and prioritizing strategic issues

During this phase of the CHA/CHIP, participants develop an ordered list of the most important issues facing the community. Strategic issues are identified by exploring the convergence of the results of the four MAPP Assessments and determining how those issues affect the achievement of the shared vision.

Recommended Participants

Core Support Team — compiles the results and prepares for MAPP Committee discussions. Rather than using a core support team, some communities may designate a subcommittee to carry out these activities.

Steering Committee — reviews the results of the four MAPP Assessments and identifies strategic issues.

Overview of the Steps for the Strategic Issues Phase

1. Identify potential strategic issues by reviewing the findings from the Visioning process and the four MAPP Assessments.
2. Arrive at an understanding of why certain issues are strategic by considering the convergence of assessment findings.
3. Determine the consequences of not addressing certain issues by considering the urgency or immediacy of the issue.
4. Consolidate overlapping or related issues into a manageable number. The final list should include no more than 12 issues.
5. Arrange issues in priority order by considering how they relate to one another.

Overview of the Process

• Description of Strategic Issues Identification Process: In this one-page document, San Antonio provides a description of their strategic issues identification process. Also provided in this document are links to more information about the technology of participation facilitation process, which several MAPP communities have successfully used in various phases of the process.
• Training Presentation: Prioritizing Issues - This presentation describes different types of criteria that should be considered in the prioritization process, tools or methods to use for issue prioritization, how to design a process that ensures attention to health condition priorities, system-level issues, and social determinants of health, how to involve project staff, community members and partners in the process, and more.

Getting Ready to Begin

• Strategic Issues Committee Chairperson Job Description: This is a comprehensive description of the duties and responsibilities expected of strategic issues committee chairperson. More »

• Facilitator's Notes: The Saginaw, MI steering committee met to review the data from the four MAPP assessments. This three-page document provides an agenda for reviewing the data and identifying themes. More »

Summary Reports and Presentations

Worksheet Strategic Issues Identification

• Strategic Issues Relationship Diagram: This diagram helps users illustrate how a strategic issue is supported by data from each of the four assessments.

• Example Completed Strategic Issues Relationship Diagram: The Chicago partnership completed this diagram illustrating the relationship between the strategic issues identified by their community and the corresponding MAPP phases.

• Strategic Issues Identification Worksheet: This worksheet defines the term "strategic issues" and poses questions to help MAPP teams define their own community's strategic issues.