The Community Health Needs Assessment Steering Committee held a forum on Tuesday in which various stakeholders from Rowan County participated in multiple discussions and interactive engagement exercises. 

CHNA committee members have been meeting for months to explore the issues impacting local health and behavioral outcomes. Monday represented the culmination of that data collection to date and gave those attending a chance to be an extended part of the process. 

The purpose for Tuesday’s event was multi-pronged. Participants got to review various data points collected from the community survey that was completed by more than 1,000 Rowan County residents during the past two months and then after digesting that material, they were included in focus group discussions about different topics they had just seen.

A health department consultant, Zack King, led much of the agenda for Tuesday’s activities. 

“The goal is to come up with shared ideas of what is important,” King said. 

Expanding on that, he said that participants should not expect to leave the event with a “signed, sealed envelope” knowing which direction the committee would go in setting health priorities. 

“Where we are going to land is a foundational place of where we need to do some more fine tuning,” King said. “We will start large. The goal is about you telling us things …  not to become encyclopedias for everything in Rowan County. It is for engagement.”

After going on what was called a data walk, where participants delved into the survey data, they reconvened in focus groups of about a half dozen people. There, they answered questions including: what most clearly stands out to you from the information we’ve reviewed this afternoon; where have you noticed alignment between issues we’ve explored today and current community priorities; what issues would you potentially prioritize to improve the health and well-being of our community and why; how do you think substance use is currently affecting youth, families and public safety in our community; what do you believe are the biggest reasons youth in our community start using substances; and what resources or services do you believe are missing that could better support individuals struggling with substance use.

The focus groups were designed to gather additional information that the surveys may not have. After concluding those groups, the various reports reflected how different the conversations had evolved to be. 

Participant Dr. Francis Koster pointed out how initial data did not connect to health records from schools.

“That includes such things as vaccinations, absenteeism, which could be an overlay to the other excellent work that was done,” Koster said.  

One emergent issue was a centralization, or lack of, community resources in a way that made them more accessible. Steering Committee Member Dr. Christine Lynn said, “(We had) a lot of conversation around awareness and messaging and leaning into innovative things happening as well as trying to centralize as many of the vital resources as possible.”

Another steering committee member, Alexandra Fisher, said that her group discussed how the problem is not just affordable housing but attainable housing. Fisher pointed to limited starter home housing supply and making family continuity difficult as living in the same place many grow up becomes increasingly harder.

The cyclical nature of poverty also reared its head. Many participants acknowledged that hammering down single resolutions to complex matters can be frustrating with so many elemental components of health outcomes interwoven.

Tuesday does not represent the conclusion of the steering committee’s work, but rather just the latest episode in a months-long process.

Follow along

Prior to kicking things off, Community Health Manager and Healthy Rowan Executive Director Courtney Meece explained that as part of the process, Rowan County had the opportunity to join a regional collaborative for the health needs assessment called Central Carolina Community Collaborative, which involves surrounding counties and the data their health organizations have collected. 

We are coming together to write our reports at the same time to compare apples to apples,” Meece said. “Residents don’t always stay in the county. They travel to other counties for various needs. They may work in another county, or play in another county. Having this collaborative is very beneficial.”

Data from that partnership is available at cccc.metopi.io for additional references. 

“You can drill info down to counties, look at cities and towns, census teas and individual regions,” Meece said. “There are over 100 topics that fall into these buckets like clinical care, demographics, health behaviors, health outcomes, social and economic factors.

“One thing this platform has the ability to do is create data visualizations for you.”

Meece mentioned that whether one is part of a nonprofit organization or government agency, the tool can be useful for legislative prioritization and grant writing.