title: Use of the community assessment for public health emergency response to conduct community health assessments for public health accreditation.
abstract: A community health assessment (CHA) is a collaborative process of collecting and analyzing data to learn about the health status of a community. Community health assessments are also a requirement of public health accreditation for state and local health departments and of the Affordable Care Act for nonprofit hospitals. One element of a CHA is primary data collection. This article describes the use of the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) method for primary data collection to meet public health accreditation requirements in 2 case study communities--Nashua, New Hampshire, and Davidson County, North Carolina; CASPER is a flexible and efficient method for the collection of population-based primary data in an urban or rural setting.
authors.affiliation: NH Division of Public Health and Community Services, City of Nashua, Hillsborough, New Hampshire (Ms Conley); LCDR, US Public Health Service, and Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia (Dr Vagi); and Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Dr Horney).
authors.forename: Ashley M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Conley
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vagi
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Horney
mesh_terms: D000068:Accreditation; D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000592:standards*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004189:Disaster Planning; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009513:New Hampshire; D009657:North Carolina; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States
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