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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of local jurisdictions that have a health improvement plan — PHI‑05 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Profile of Local Health Departments (NACCHO Profile), National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)

Baseline: 67.2 percent of local public health jurisdictions had developed or participated in developing a health improvement plan in 2016

Target: 71.8 percent

Numerator
Number of local public health agencies with a health improvement plan created within the last 5 years.
Denominator
Number of local public health agencies.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were not evaluated, due to a change in definition in previous decades. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because the Healthy People 2030 Workgroup Subject Matter Experts viewed this as an ambitious yet achievable target given knowledge of current and anticipated activity in local jurisdictions.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the 2016 National Profile of Local Health Departments (LHD):

Numerator:
Has your LHD participated in developing a health improvement plan for your community?
  1. Yes, within the last three years
  2. Yes, more than three but less than five years ago
  3. Yes, five or more years ago
  4. No, but plan to in the next year
  5. No

Methodology notes

A critical aspect of public health infrastructure assessment is monitoring the status of health improvement plans at the State and local level. A health improvement plan is a long-term, systematic effort to address health problems on the basis of the results of a community needs assessment. This plan is used by health and other governmental education and human service agencies, in collaboration with community partners, to set priorities and coordinate and target resources.

The National Profile of Local Health Departments study (NACCHO Profile) is the most comprehensive source of information on the infrastructure and programs of local health departments in the U.S. All local health departments in the U.S. are surveyed about their organization, responsibilities, workforce, funding, and other topics. The NACCHO Profile study has been periodically collecting data from local health departments (LHDs) since 1989 and completed its eight wave in 2016.

The NACCHO Profile defines a local health department (LHD) as an administrative or service unit of local or state government concerned with health and carrying out some responsibility for the health of a jurisdiction smaller than the state. The Profile surveys are fielded through an email sent to the top agency executive of every eligible LHD. The email included a link to a web-based questionnaire, preloaded with information specific to the LHD. Paper questionnaires were available upon request for a subset of small LHDs. A core set of questions is sent to all LHDs.

The NACCHO Profile study defines community health improvement plan as a long-term, systematic effort to address health problems. This plan is used by health and other government education and human service agencies, in collaboration with community partners, to set priorities and coordinate and target resources.

Local health agencies that responded "Yes, within the last three years" or "Yes, more than three but less than five years ago" to the survey question "Has your LHD participated in developing a health improvement plan for your community?" were counted in the numerator.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Retained, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 with no change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from the related Healthy People 2020 objective PHI-15.3 in that the wording has been updated to "local public health jurisdictions" rather than "local public health agencies" to better reflect that this objective is not intended to measure a single agency endeavor.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.