Lincoln County Health Department is here to serve the community, but also to help improve the overall health of the county. We leverage a two-step process—the community health assessment and the community health improvement plan—to do this.
A community health assessment identifies community health needs through a collaborative process with the community. Also referred to as a CHA, the assessment looks at both quantitative (the numbers) and qualitative (the stories) of the community to find out where improvements need to be made. The CHA is not just problems though–it also inventories the strengths and positive influences our communities already have so we can continue to support those in the next step.
The community health improvement plan, aka the CHIP, is the second step and focuses on specific steps to meet the needs the CHA identified. The CHIP tells the community how we are going to fix the issues and meet the needs of the community. A CHIP is a foundational guide for several years—normally three to five—on how each need will be specifically met, the order the needs will be addressed, who will do the work, and what the measure of success will be.
LCHD developed a CHIP in 2018, but the pandemic interrupted its implementation. Rather than go back to working on something which was five years old, we decided to conduct a new CHA and develop a new CHIP so we would be responsive to the community needs now.
LCHD is currently working on the 2023-24 CHA, which will guide the next CHIP. We began by conducting community forums in Davenport, Odessa, Wilbur, Seven Bays, and Harrington communities.
Currently we are collecting survey responses to allow for community members who were not able to be at a forum to help us narrow down the priorities in the needs identified in the forums. If you would like a paper copy of the survey, please contact us.
Below are reports relating to previous CHA and CHIP efforts in Lincoln County.
In addition to the work the LCHD does, Lincoln County is part of a multi-county region that receives technical assistance from the Data Center program housed in the Spokane Regional Health District. This collaboration allows for additional data collection and evaluation, expanding the capacity of our team. The reports below are the most recent reports in their specific areas.
Information on the county is also available on the County Health Insights website, a data site for Eastern Washington.