(Racine, WI) –Beginning October 2020, local health partners, including the Central Racine County Health Department, City of Racine Public Health Department, Ascension Wisconsin, Advocate Aurora Health, Children’s Wisconsin, and Health Care Network are urging residents to participate in a community health survey. The Community Health Assessment (CHA) survey will provide valuable data for continued evaluation of community needs and help guide government, not-for-profit, and volunteer organizations as they fashion services to meet the most pressing health needs of the community. A random selection of 3,000 county addresses will be mailed the survey between October and November. A household resident over the age of 18 will be asked to complete the community health survey online or return a completed paper copy of the survey in the mail.
“If you are among those who receive a survey, I encourage you to take the time to answer the questions about the health needs in our county,” said Margaret Gesner, Health Officer for Central Racine County Health Department. “Your responses are invaluable to this project and help inform a community health assessment which serves as the basis for identifying health priorities to focus on and ways to improve the quality of life for community residents,” said Dottie-Kay Bowersox, Public Health Administrator for City of Racine Public Health Department.
The anonymous survey will take about 15 minutes to complete. It will be conducted by JKV Research LLC., an independent research firm that specializes in community surveys. None of the questions ask for identifying information, such as social security number, banking account numbers, or other personal identifiers. Questions will focus on issues such as access to primary care, health care coverage, substance use, smoking, vaping, nutrition, physical activity, cancer prevention, injury prevention, immunizations, children’s health, mental health, and chronic disease. The new aggregate data will supplement 2017 community health assessment data and will allow Racine County Health Departments and health systems to analyze community trends over time. The summative results will be released to the public in 2021. No individual data will be released.
The community health survey is aimed at meeting several objectives:
- Gathering local data to document health status related to the health priorities established by the state health plan.
- Identifying local health behaviors or risk factors that present opportunities for health promotion and health care cost reduction.
- Tracking the success of community health improvement activities.
- Allowing local health partners to document population health indicators to help guide health improvement efforts to improve community health in Racine County.
