How are data collected for meaningful results of community needs assessment?

Loaded question: Do you think there are more postgraduates (Master’s, PhD, MBA) because of the country’s weak economy?

The question also includes a false premise: the participant is required to agree that the economy is weak to answer. The question also imposes a causal relationship between the economy and postgraduate study that a person may not see. Loaded questions are inherently biased and push respondents into confirming a particular argument they may not agree with.

Double-barreled question: Would you like to be rich and famous?

Double-barreled questions are difficult for people to answer. A person might like to be rich but not famous and would thus have trouble responding to this question. Additionally, you don’t know whether they are responding to both parts of the question or just one.

Biased question: Do you agree that the President is doing a wonderful job on foreign policy?

Biased language that either triggers emotional responses or imposes your opinion can influence the results of your survey. Survey questions should be neutral, simple, and void of emotion.

Assumptive question: Do you have extra money after paying bills that you invest?

This question assumes that the participant has extra money after paying bills. When a person reads a question they feel is irrelevant to him or her, it can lead to attrition from the survey. This is why Logic Jump is useful—surveys should adapt to respondents’ answers so they can skip questions that don’t apply to them.

This question would be better asked in two parts: do you have extra money after paying bills? (If yes: Do you invest the extra money you have after paying bills?

Second-hand knowledge question: Does your community have a problem with crime?

Not only are ‘crime’ and ‘problem’ vague, it’s challenging for a layperson to report on something related to the community-at-large. The responses to the question wouldn’t be reliable. Stick to asking questions that cover people’s first-hand knowledge.

If you are trying to understand the prevalence of criminal acts, it would be better to ask: In the past 12 months, have you been the victim of a crime?

Hypothetical questions: If you received a $10,000 bonus at work, would you invest it?

People are terrible at predicting future behavior, particularly in situations they’ve never encountered. Behavior is deeply situational, so what a person might do upon receiving a bonus could depend on whether they had credit card debt, whether they needed to make an immediate purchase, the time of year, and so on.

When was the last time your organization conducted a community health needs assessment? Many organizations only conduct needs assessments when required by a funder or other group involved in a project.  Resources, particularly money and staff time, may be scarce. A needs assessment may not seem like a high priority when faced with so many other organizational and client demands. 

Although community advocates and outreach workers may feel that they have a strong understanding of the barriers to care, community health needs can change over time.  New emerging population groups present additional cultural and linguistic competency challenges and opportunities to the organizations that serve them. Changes in living and working patterns of the community can also present new challenges and new opportunities. 

A needs assessment is a tool to help you determine the true needs of the community that you serve.  These needs are identified by community members themselves. Finding out the specific needs of your community – not just those of patients but also the needs of community members who do not seek services at your center – can help maximize the results of your outreach efforts.

Many organizations conduct needs assessments because they are required to do so by their funders as part of a grant application or renewal.  However, there are many other reasons for doing a community needs assessment.

Needs assessments can:

• help to establish program priorities, objectives, and goals
• help prioritize which education and outreach services to conduct with a priority population
• improve a health center’s quality of care
• help improve other community service providers’ understanding of health and social service needs, thus working to improve overall community awareness of and services for a priority population
• help securing additional program funding

In planning for a needs assessment, you must determine from the outset how you plan to apply the information you collect. It is important to know exactly what your purpose is in conducting the needs assessment. This will help you develop your specific goals and stay focused on what you want to achieve.

Define the boundaries of your needs assessment effort.  Be sure to determine exactly whom you want to assess and what you want to asses. For example, do you want to focus on low-income families? Homeless population? A specific ethnic group? Migrant farmworkers? Also be specific about the geographic area you intend to cover and the topics you want to address. It is important to consider language(s) and/or dialects spoken in the community and the best time to assess – both during the year and time of day.   

Use both internal and external resources. Before collecting any information yourself, determine what information already exists about the community or group you plan to assess.  Agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, state or local health departments, Head Start, local school districts, and community health centers can be invaluable sources of information.

Determine how many staff members and how much staff time can be used.  You may be able to recruit assistance for certain parts of the needs assessment from organizations such as local churches, hospitals, social service agencies, university students, or community service organizations.

Decide how you will gather information.  Surveys (mail, telephone, in-person), focus groups, key informant interviews, and secondary data sources are some possibilities. What you choose will depend on the expertise available among staff, volunteers, or collaborators as well as the extent to which each method is appropriate for your priority population. For example, if few individuals in your priority population have internet, an internet survey would not be a useful way to gather information.

Cultural competency is critical. If the individuals who are collecting information from the community do not have an adequate understanding of, or respect for, the respondents’ cultural characteristics, there will be little chance of developing enough trust to collect meaningful information. Successful needs assessments also often make use of an existing tool. If an appropriate survey already exists, use or adapt it for your specific purpose. 

Partnering with local agencies or institutions can also be a key to success.  You may benefit from expertise that does not exist among your own staff – data analysis, for example. In addition, sharing information among local agencies, and even at the regional, state, and national levels, can be very useful for a number of stakeholders.  Finally, consider establishing an advisory group for your needs assessment.  The advisory group should be made up of a representative sample of people from the community you are assessing. These community advisors can guide you in your assessment effort.  Moreover, inviting community member participation can help build capacity in that community.

Use the data you collect. Share the results with stakeholders in the community, including the priority population.  When sharing information, make sure what you share is appropriate.  For example, if you collected information on worker health and safety, you would probably not want to share specific names and addresses of those who participated in the assessment with employer contacts and representatives.  After sharing relevant and appropriate information, develop a plan of action to address the gaps in services and needs you have identified. 

In conclusion, a needs assessment is a critical component in delivering effective health services and health education at any organization.  A needs assessment requires collecting information from a variety of sources in order to understand the quality of health, health care needs, as well as the type of health education needed in a particular community or group.  A needs assessment should respond to the needs of the population studied as well as the needs of the institution(s) conducting assessment.

For more information on needs assessment, please visit our website at www.outreach-partners.org.  Health Outreach Partners can also help you and your organization conduct a community needs assessment.  Please contact us for more information. Finally, you may find these online resources helpful:

U.S. Census Bureau:

www.census.gov

U.S. Department of Labor:

www.dol.gov

Office of Head Start:

www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ohs/

How will you determine the needs of the people in your community?

Interviews, focus groups, and surveys are great data collection tools that will help you understand the perceived and expressed needs of your community. Surveys are efficient at collecting lots of information, and they empower participants to get involved in community development.

How is needs assessment done in communication what is the key to finding out what the audience needs?

To conduct a quality needs assessment according to Kaufman, first determine the current results, articulate the desired results, and the distance between results is the actual need. Once a need is identified, then a solution can be selected that is targeted to closing the gap.

How do you determine the needs and wants of the target market and industry in an immediate community?

Find out what they want and do your best to give it to them..

How do you determine what your target audience wants and needs? ... .

Meet them on their own territory. ... .

Listen more than you speak. ... .

If you want to know something, ask. ... .

Ask yourself if you find what you are giving to others valuable to you. ... .

Conclusion..

How do you evaluate if your community is healthy?

As such, a healthy community is one in which all residents have access to a quality education, safe and healthy homes, adequate employment, transportation, physical activity, and nutrition, in addition to quality health care

What data collection method is used in community health assessments?

In what other ways can the results of a community needs assessment be used?

What are the steps involved in conducting a community needs assessment?

What are the types of data in community assessment?