title: A community health report card: comprehensive assessment for tracking community health (CATCH).
abstract: A systematic method for assessing the health status of communities has been under development at the University of South Florida since 1991. The system, known as CATCH, draws 226 indicators from multiple sources and uses an innovative comparative framework and weighted evaluation criteria to produce a rank-ordered community problem list. The CATCH results from II Floridian counties have focused attention on high priority health problems and provided a framework for measuring the impact of health expenditures on community health status outcomes. The method and plans to create an automated data warehouse to support its expansion and enrichment are described.
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, College of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, Tampa 33612-3805, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Studnicki
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Steverson
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hevner
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Berndt
mesh_terms: D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005431:Florida / Q000453:epidemiology; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods