IDAHO, USA — Affordable housing, behavioral health and access to affordable health care are the most urgent community health needs in Southwest Idaho, according to a Community Health Needs Assessment.
The Community Health Needs Assessment covered 10 counties: Ada, Elmore, Boise, Valley, Adams, Canyon, Gem, Owyhee, Payette, and Washington.
For the first time in the state's history, several different health organizations came together to conduct the assessment.
"The key findings from this joint assessment are really nothing new," Monique Evancic, public information officer for Southwest District Health said. "They are pervasive issues that we are finding time and time again in our area."
The priorities from this year's Community Health Needs Assessment are:
- Safe, affordable housing and homelessness
- Behavioral health, including mental health and well-being, and substance misuse
- Access to affordable health care, including oral and vision health
Officials say that housing instability can impact someone's health and ability to access or afford health care.
"It's kind of this domino effect," Evancic said. "If you don't have that foundation, then the other things in your world are going to go to the wayside as well."
According to the assessment, housing vacancy rates have been decreasing making it more difficult for low-income households to obtain housing. A vacancy rate of 4% is "dangerously low," the report states -- and that includes Ada, Canyon and Payette counties.
When it comes to mental health, the report states that all ten counties in the report are a "shortage area" for mental health resources and providers.
"There is a serious concern for youth mental health and the ability to seek and find treatment," it says. There's also multiple barriers to even seeking this care, among other types of health care, like oral or vision. According to the report, most residents in the Treasure Valley do not have access to oral health care.
A Community Health Needs Assessment is conducted every three years per a federal requirement.
"What's important this time around is that this was a joint effort," Evancic said.
The organizations involved in the assessment are Central District Health, Southwest District Health, Saint Alphonsus, St. Luke's, United Way of the Treasure Valley, Intermountain Health, and Weiser Memorial Hospital. The initiative was organized by the Western Idaho Community Health Collaborative.
"All these organizations are pooling their resources and creating this joint assessment for the first time," Evancic said. "So it's kind of bigger and badder than ever."
Data for the assessment was collected through community focus groups, key partner interviews and a community survey.
"There's a variety of different means to collecting that data," Evancic said. "Then they just do it together, and then they're able to leverage their strengths and their skill sets in order to bring together more information then they could do just by themselves."
That data is now available in the Idaho Oregon Community Health Atlas.
"It's a web portal, it's a database and it's completely searchable," Evancic said. "So you can take a deep dive into that information and search out and pick apart what you're looking for. This is completely available to the public."
Hundreds of different data points can be broken down by area in the Health Atlas, and data can be visualized through maps and charts.
"It's just a wealth of information for public health," Evancic said.
Now that the Community Health Needs Assessment is complete, the organizations involved will work together to create a Community Health Implementation Plan.
"That's great that we have the data, and so people might be asking, 'Well, what's next?' So that's the piece - the implementation part," Evancic said. "So they're going to work together so that they don't duplicate efforts, so that they leverage their resources and skill sets, in order to then tackle. That's the whole point of this - tackle these issues."
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