title: Community Health Records: Establishing a Systematic Approach to Improving Social and Physical Determinants of Health.
abstract: To systematically improve population health in the United States, community health records (CHRs) must be defined, developed, and implemented. Like electronic and personal health records, CHRs have both unique and overlapping information. CHRs contain data about communities, including the social, physical, and lifestyle determinants of health. These records will serve to complement electronic and personal health records to provide a more complete view of population health, allowing stakeholders to target community health and quality-of-life interventions in a data-driven and evidence-based manner, establishing the basis from which organizations can develop a systematic approach to improving community health. This commentary calls on the United States to conduct a set of consensus activities to define and implement CHRs.
authors.affiliation: Deryk Van Brunt is President of the Healthy Communities Institute, a Conduent Company, and with the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.
authors.forename: Deryk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Van Brunt
mesh_terms: D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D011634:Public Health; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011788:Quality of Life; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D064890:Social Determinants of Health; D012931:Social Environment; D014481:United States