Assessing Needs

A critical aspect of a Community Health Assessment is developing an understanding of the needs of that community. Assessing these needs takes significant preparation and planning. The first step in the planning process is defining the community. It is not always simply a matter of establishing geographic borders. Another early step in the planning process is figuring out what you already know about the community. This preparation is essential before engaging community members in a more formal needs assessment process.

For this Discussion, you will explore needs assessments in more detail. You will consider a particular vignette from your Learning Resources and evaluate the fundamental steps for a needs assessment that would be most appropriate for the given vignette.

• Review methods for qualitative data collection presented in Week 5 and examine the vignette provided in the Soriano textbook on pages 71 and 72.

With these thoughts in mind

Post a 3- to 4-paragraph evaluation of an assessment that would be most appropriate for this situation. Make sure to include the following:

• The purpose of the assessment
• Key assessment questions that should be asked
• A list of key stakeholders/collaborators in the assessment
• Data collection methods that could be used to answer your assessment questions
• Data collection methods you would expect the commanding officer and other key stakeholders to prefer
• Support for your response