St. Charles County Division of Public Health - Community Health Assessment Survey

Environmental Services | Humane Services | DOCHE Home | Contact Us

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW | VIEW THE SURVEY RESULTS.

The Community Health Survey

The Community Health Survey online is a cooperative effort of the St. Charles County Department of Community Health and the Environment and Healthy Communities St. Charles County. In 1995, Healthy Communities convened a task group, which included the Department of Community Health and the Environment. The group worked for several months to compile a comprehensive community health survey. The survey was published in the Journal Newspapers in St. Charles County. The Journal is distributed to every household in St. Charles County. The response was significant and the data from the surveys was included in a 1998 Comprehensive Community Health Assessment Survey that was published and distributed widely throughout the County.

In 2000, shortly after the Department of Community Health and the Environment created a website, the 1996 survey was placed online. The online version collected data in real-time and allowed the public to see the cumulative results of the online survey process. Results are stored in an Access database and can be downloaded by the Department and analyzed using SPSS. Over a thousand responses were received and this data allowed the Department to follow best-practice recommendations for periodic community health assessment. It also allowed the Department to meet contractual requirements for state funding for some local public health activities.

At the time the survey was put online, to the best of our knowledge, the St. Charles County Department of Community Health and the Environment was the only local health department with an online assessment available. Since 2000, eight other local public health agencies in Missouri have adopted the same or as similar survey. In addition, numerous inquiries have been received about the survey and analytical methodology. Public health agencies from other countries including England, Canada and New Zealand have asked about the survey, as have health departments from a number of states including Texas, Colorado and Arizona.

In 2003 Healthy Communities of St. Charles County embarked on a project to update the survey questions and to again publish the survey in the Journal Newspapers. Again, the Department of Community Health and the Environment partnered with Healthy Communities and the new survey was not only published in the Journal Newspapers, with a very substantial response, but it has now been put online and replaces the original survey. This not only will supplement the response from Journal readers but also will provide a data entry tool to get manual survey data into an electronic format.

A common question about the survey is, "is an online survey an adequate method of collecting data since some people don't have computer and Internet access?" First, the manual survey helps in getting an adequate sampling of the group who do not use computers. Manual surveys are also distributed elsewhere in the community to help fill in this gap. When the demographics of the group taking the previous online survey we compiled and compared to year 2000 US Census data the two groups matched. As a result, we feel that this methodology is an accurate and cost-effective way to get ongoing information of community attitudes and practices related to health.

If you would like to participate in the online Community Health Assessment Survey you may do so by clicking here. The survey consists of three main sections dealing with individual, family, and community related issues. Please do not complete the survey if you have done so within the past year. The survey is completely confidential, we do not ask for your name, email, or any personal identification whatsoever. We also don't use tracking cookies so it is possible to take the survey more than once but we ask that you not do that. Note, however, that all family members may take the survey. We encourage you to read our privacy statement. When taking the survey, please answer the questions as truthfully as possible.

If you wish to download the survey you can print out the form and mail the completed form to the address shown on the last page. For reasons of confidentiality, please do not show your name or return address on the form or on the envelope! You can choose either Adobe Acrobat format or Microsoft Word format.

For those who want to know more about why we are doing this, please read on!

What is a community health survey?

In 1988 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Institutes of Health published The Future of Public Health (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988). This document defined public health and put public health activities into three broad functional categories that are now commonly called core functions. The three core functions are:
· Assessment
· Policy Development
· Assurance

If you are interested in reading a summary of the IOM definitions of the three functions please click here.

The assessment function should be conducted every three to 5 years. It gives the public health agency a good overall picture of the health status and health needs of the community. It includes data from surveys, statistics collected continually on communicable diseases reported in the community, census data that describes the population, and data from other sources. Taken together, all of this information paints a portrait of the community. Are a lot of people concerned with cancer? How many of us could stand to lose a few (or many) pounds? What percent of residents have health insurance and what kind and what percent are uninsured?

This community "portrait" helps your Department of Community Health and the Environment in St. Charles County develop, maintain and improve programs that are needed, and that you want, in areas that you think are important. By doing assessment periodically a health department can see if needs are shifting and react accordingly. This process helps in using resources more effectively. The last survey was completed and published by Healthy Communities - St. Charles County in 1998. (To obtain a copy of that survey call Healthy Communities at 636-947-5085) That survey was a cooperative effort of many agencies and individuals including the Department of Community Health and the Environment. It was distributed for completion at key locations throughout the county and was published in the Suburban Journals.

Why is this survey online?

St. Charles County has had a publicly supported Internet service provider, the Westplex Information Network (WIN) since early in 1995. Residents have been able to get reliable Internet access and email for very small monthly fee. Because of this, a lot of citizens are online. In addition, the library district and many schools have Internet access available. We believe that we can get meaningful survey results by asking residents to participate in taking the online version. We will also be periodically distributing surveys at locations throughout the community. Those surveys will be mailed in and entered into the system.

An online survey is a robust and cost-effective way to reach a lot of people (this website has 15,000 to 25,000 visitors a month who might potentially take the survey). In addition, the results of the survey will be online and will be instantly updated every time an online survey is taken and submitted. Because of this, we don't have to spend the substantial time and resources needed to survey the community every three years and still get only a snapshot of the community during those days or weeks during which the survey was distributed. Instead we will have an ongoing survey. It is also a great advantage to have the person taking the survey also doing the data entry! We can examine data for any one-day, any week, month or year and we can look for trends. For example, if we see that many of our citizens feel that they are overweight, we can provide programs to guide residents in eating healthy meals that still taste good. We can promote exercise and provide information on how to start an exercise program. We can do this in cooperation with our other health care partners in the county. After two or three years we can see if the proportion of those filling out the survey that report that they don't exercise or are overweight has declined over time.

Finally, the survey can be taken by anyone that wants to participate. We will be able to compare St. Charles County resident responses to the total of responses from other communities in Missouri or elsewhere.

So, please take the survey and enjoy it. It is completely anonymous and we have no way of identifying any individual who completes the survey. You are encouraged to take the survey once a year. Please don't take it more frequently but DO tell your family and friends about it so they can take it. Also, PLEASE email us with your comments and suggestions and any criticisms you may have by clicking here.

IOM CORE FUNCTION DEFINITIONS ^{1, 2}

"Assessment - calls for public health agencies to regularly and systematically collect, assemble, analyze, and make available information on the health of the community, including statistics on health status, community health needs and epidemiological and other studies of health problems. Not every agency is large enough to conduct these activities directly; inter-governmental and interagency cooperation is essential. Nevertheless each agency bears the responsibility for seeing that the assessment function is fulfilled. This basic function of public health cannot be delegated."

"Policy Development - calls for public health agencies to serve the public interest in the development of comprehensive public health policies by promoting the use of the scientific knowledge base in decision-making about public health and by leading in developing public health policy. Agencies must take a strategic approach, developed on the basis of a positive appreciation for the democratic political process."

"Assurance - calls for public health agencies to assure their constituents that services necessary to achieve agreed upon goals are provided, either by encouraging actions by other entities (private or public), by requiring such action through regulation, or by providing services directly. Each public health agency is to involve key policy makers and the general public in determining a set of high-priority personal and community wide health services that government will guarantee to every member of the community. This guarantee should include subsidization or direct provision of high-priority personal health services for those unable to afford them."

Here is another listing showing sub functions that are called the "Ten Essential Services": 3

Assessment
1. Assess the health needs of the community.
2. Investigate the occurrence of health effects and health hazards in the community.
3. Analyze the determinants of identified health needs.

Policy Development
1. Advocate for public health, build constituencies, and identify resources in the community.
2. Set Priorities among health needs.
3. Develop plans and policies to address priority health needs.

Assurance
1. Manage resources and develop organizational structure.
2. Implement programs.
3. Evaluate programs and provide quality assurance
4. Inform and educate the public.

1. Institute of Medicine The Future of Public Health (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988).
2. Turnock, Bernard J., Public Health - What It Is and How It Works (Gaithersburg, Maryland: Aspen Publishers, 1997)
3. Green, Lawrence W. and Ottoson, Judith M., Community and Population Health - 8th Edition ( St. Louis, Missouri: WCB McGraw-Hill Publishers)

This page is available in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat format. If you would like to download and review it please click here for a Microsoft Word document or here for an Adobe Acrobat document.