Author(s)

Elizabeth Schafer, Rebecca Smullin Dawson

Global Health Studies Program, Allegheny College, Meadville, USA.

We conducted a review of the peer-reviewed literature focused on conducting community health needs assessments and highlighted the necessary steps to conduct a community health needs assessment in a rural community. From the literature review, we identified three steps necessary— establishing partnerships, using a mixed methods approach, and disseminating results—to successfully conduct a needs assessment that fitted the definition of the Affordable Care Act. These three steps have been used as a guide for developing a protocol for conducting a community health needs assessment in Meadville, PA. We detail our preliminary project protocol here.

Epidemiology, Community Health

Schafer, E. and Dawson, R. (2015) Assessing Community Health Needs in a Rural Area: Determining Best Practices to Meet New Affordable Care Act Requirements. Health, 7, 542-546. doi: 10.4236/health.2015.75064.