Community Health Needs Assessments

Medical Insight: Community Health - Video Transcript

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SPEAKER 1: Welcome to Medical Insight, a weekly health care feature brought to you by the experts in Essentia Health.

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Text, Essentia Health. Here with you. Medical insight.

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Here's your host, Maureen Talarico. MAUREEN TALARICO: Today on Medical Insight, pediatrician Dr. Timothy Zager and primary care physician Dr. James Conniff talk about the concept of community health.

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Dr. James Conniff, primary care physician, sits in a chair by a fireplace

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JAMES CONNIFF: I think of community health as being analogous to individual health. It's just that instead of talking about the health of a person, you're talking about the health of a whole community. MAUREEN TALARICO: According to Dr. Zager who oversees the Essentia Health Wellness Program, for Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin only 10% of the population uses 90% of health care. Research shows this is due to increasing social disparities in health.

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Dr. Timothy Zager, pediatrician. Pie chart, social determinants of health. 40% social and economic factors, 30% health behaviors, 10% clinical care, 10% physical environment, 10% genes and biology

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TIMOTHY ZAGER: The root cause of a lot of these disparities in health care go to social disparities from the standpoint of housing, food access, education, and even personal choices in lifestyles and behaviors. MAUREEN TALARICO: Health care systems recognize these growing disparities and are now proactively working to improve the health of our communities through initiatives such as CHNA. JAMES CONNIFF: CHNA stands for community health needs assessment, and it's really a way for hospitals to focus on the big picture needs of a community as defined by that community.

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A man walks his dog on a rocky beach by the edge of the ocean. A brown, partially submerged structure is in the water with a black and white lighthouse in the background. A man and a child ride a tandem bike down a park path.

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It is not just a hospital presuming to know what a community needs, but it's a hospital looking at the quantitative data that's out there, looking at survey results, census results to get a sense of what the needs are, and also asking people directly-- organizing focus groups, interviewing community leaders and public health experts to really get qualitative input from the community about what the biggest issues that they face are.

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People walk along a boardwalk

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MAUREEN TALARICO: To learn more about community health, call or visit Essentia Health. For Medical Insight, I'm Maureen Talarico. SPEAKER 1: To learn more about this topic, call our experts at 786-3107.

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Text, Medical Insight. 218-786-3107. Essentia Health dot org. Essentia Health. Here with you.