SALISBURY — The Community Health Needs Assessment Steering Committee is winding down their research portion of the months-long project and turning its attention towards dissemination of findings.

When the committee met on Monday at St. John’s Lutheran Church, it debriefed from the community health forum that was held last month, during which numerous residents and community stakeholders gathered at the Rowan County Events Center for data walk and focus group sessions.

After tabulating those data points, the committee was able to gauge what those attendees described as the greatest health-related issues impacting Rowan County residents. Selecting from access to healthy foods, safe and affordable housing, mental health, chronic conditions, substance use and access to care, respondents sought to identify the top issues.

Safe and affordable housing rose to the top as having the greatest severity of overall impact on the community. Substance use and mental health ranked in a tie for second place among that same question.

Another question asked about disparity, or gaps in opportunities and outcomes across different parts of the community. In that line of questioning, mental health was the top vote getter, with safe and affordable housing in a close second.

Questions also asked about how those issues aligned with community goals, efforts and plans, as well as readiness or willingness and momentum to address issues collaboratively. In the former case, substance use was the top vote getter. In the latter, substance use also took the top slot. Mental health was No. 2 in both those questions. Lastly, feasibility sought to gauge how likely meaningful change was to be accomplished. Mental health, substance use and access to health foods were all tied for first.

With the final steps of data collection complete, the next step is for the steering committee to select the priorities that its members deem to be of the greatest importance for the assessment.

Community Health Manager and Healthy Rowan Executive Director Courtney Meece indicated that it would take a little time to finalize those priorities but that when that part of the process was completed, members of her team would look to effective dissemination methods to get the word out.

“The next phase is to disseminate the results,” Meece said. “That can be through various types of media.”

One idea will involve digestible information pieces for the community to consume at an easy pace. Meece called them nuggets.

“It is a social media post once a week that will focus on a specific area that we explored in the CHNA,” Meece said.

They also hope to utilize other mediums of dissemination such as radio broadcasts and local publications like the Salisbury Post. However, a lot of it will involve direct contact with stakeholders.

“We are looking for different types of groups that already meet like a political group, civic organization, town halls or town board meetings to get in front of the most people,” Meece said. “If an organization or group wants us to come present to them, they can reach out to me.”

Meece’s email is courtney.meece@rowancountync.gov.