Coalition Building: Assessing Community Needs and Resources

Examples

Example #1: Sample concerns survey cover letter
Example #2: Sample Survey of Community Health Concerns
Example #3: Sample brief report of community health strengths and problems
Example #4: Interview with Dr. Glen White on his experiences with concerns surveys

Example 1: Sample concerns survey cover letter

Fredville Community Health Coalition 9876 Maple St., Fredville, CO 12345 Fredville needs your help! Your opinion about the health concerns here in Fredville is important, so we're asking for your help. The information you can give us will be used to develop laws and policies and improve services that can benefit you. Please take a few minutes of your time right now to complete and return the enclosed survey. This survey identifies community health issues that may be important to people in our community. If you need help reading or completing the survey, please ask a friend or a family member to assist you. You don't have to complete this survey to receive any services or benefits you get. It is completely voluntary on your part, and your answers will be kept confidential. Instructions: In the first column, circle the number that shows how important each issue is to you. In the second column, circle the number that shows how satisfied you are with your community's efforts to address the issue. EXAMPLE: How important is this issue to you? How satisfied are you with the community's efforts in this area? How important is this issue to you? How satisfied are you with the community's efforts in this area? Not       Very Not       Very 1. Free childcare is available for all low-income parents with children under 6 years of age 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4     In the example, if free child care for low-income kids was really very important to you and you are unhappy with the community's efforts in providing that child care, you would circle 4 on the first part of the question and 0 on the second part. Please read each of the items in this survey, and circle the numbers to indicate the importance of each issue and your satisfaction with the community's efforts. The last part of the survey asks for information about you. This information will be kept confidential; it just helps us know what sort of concerns are most important to different groups of people. Please return the completed survey to us in the enclosed postpaid envelope. Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. We hope to use this information to improve the health of citizens of Fredville. We appreciate your help. Sincerely, (Name) (Title)

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Example 2: Sample Survey of Community Health Concerns

Survey of Community Health Concerns Instructions: In the first column, circle the number that shows how important each issue is to you. In the second column, circle the number that shows how satisfied you are with your community's efforts to address the issue. If you find an item that does not apply to you, leave both columns blank. Please circle the importance and satisfaction for each of the items that follow.   How important is this issue to you? How satisfied are you with the community's efforts in this area?   Not Very Not Very 1. The community's air is of good quality. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 2. Treatment facilities for drug abusers are available and affordable. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 3. Schools provide basic health care services to students. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 4. Information is available about the safe use of farm machinery. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 5. Nutrition education is provided from preschool through grade 12. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 6. Adequate nursing homes are available for older adults who need them. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 7. People know the warning signs for colo-rectal, lung, breast, and prostate cancer. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 8. Kids do not have access to drugs or alcohol. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 9. Schools, churches, and community organizations provide appropriate family life and sex education courses. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 10. Adequate job opportunities are available. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 11. Restaurants have adequate non-smoking sections. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 12. Teens do not practice premarital sex. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 13. Health insurance is available and affordable to all people in this community. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 14. Schools teach kids how AIDS is not spread. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 15. Medical care is available and affordable for all pregnant women throughout their pregnancies. 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4

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Example 3: Sample brief report of community health strengths and problems

Brief Report of Community Health Strengths and Problems Health Concerns Survey Fredville, Colorado CONCERNS BRIEF REPORT TOP STRENGTHS AND TOP PROBLEMS
Survey Question	Average Importance	Average Satisfaction
Relative Strengths
Vaccinations are available and affordable.	91%	81%
The city of Fredville sponsors free public health fairs offering cholesterol and blood pressure checks.	89%	83%
Emergency medical services are adequate in the city of Fredville	92%	73%
Older adults in Fredville can remain in their own homes if they wish.	88%	69%
Basic health care services (such as regular check-ups) are available and affordable.	89%	67%
Relative Problems
Kids do not have access to drugs or alcohol in Fredville.	90%	35%
Health insurance is available and affordable to all people in Fredville.	87%	39%
Parents know how to talk to their kids about drugs and alcohol.	86%	53%
Financial help is available for people with chronic health issues.	86%	53%
In Fredville, toxic wastes are disposed of safely.	70%	49%

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Example 4: Interview with Dr. Glen White on his experiences with concerns surveys

Dr. Glen White wears many hats at the University of Kansas. In addition to his position as an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Life (http://www.ku.edu/~hdfl/), he is Director of the Research Group on Rehabilitation and Independent Living (http://www.rgril.ku.edu/) and Co-Director of the Research and Training Center on Independent Living (http://www.rtcil.org/). Dr. White has worked extensively with the concerns report method and we asked him to relate some of his experiences.

CTB: I wondered if maybe you could relate any experiences you've had with how a community initiative or coalition has used concerns surveys to advance their work.

Dr. White: I worked on one recently constructed concerns survey that's the beauty of this method; it's so easy to modify. A lot of people don't understand it, they think it's too simple... but it's a very effective tool. I worked on one looking at health issues for all of Osage County, an area that's pretty much rural. And we did a lot of structured interviews. Consumers did most of the surveys to help us find out what their needs were. In addition, we conducted structured interviews with key agencies in or around that county: Meals on Wheels, nursing homes, community centers, business associations, the area agency on aging, organizations like that. Just to get a composite kind of a mosaic, if you will picture of what the needs were. So it wasn't a formal coalition-building going on with that case, but it was just one part of that mosaic that really helped us. The results were accredited in a national report.

CTB: Really!

Dr. White: So I did surveys with three sites, one in Puyallup, Washington; one in a place called Polson, Montana; and then the area of Osage County. Then we came up with a number of different needs assessments, which were corroborated with the kind of concerns report that was sent out. We went to an independent living center in Osage City, where there's a food distribution point. People can receive their Cheerios or whatever the government is providing that week. They had people fill out surveys when they came in. So we had about 125 surveys from that center alone.

Another application with the concerns report method was in Atlanta, Georgia, looking at people with head injury, brain injury survivors.

Another thing we've used concerns reports for is health promotion for women with disabilities, because a lot of these women that want to be healthy find there are a lot of barriers that prevent them from being healthy. We paid for transportation for them to come in to have a pretty representative group. Our survey return rate wasn't as high as we wanted it to be but we thought that it was pretty good. The survey responders identified a number of health issues and physical barriers, attitudinal barriers that women encountered. Trying to stay healthy, several noted that health fitness clubs and centers are not accessible. One of the issues that women brought up in the group that's not something that I would have known anything about without their input is the issue of spandex! Not everybody looks like a Barbie doll. For some women with disabilities, especially if they don't have any muscle tone in their legs, how they looked in exercise wear was really a big barrier for them in terms of physical activity. You know, all of those other Barbies jumping around in spandex can be very intimidating.

CTB: I would think there probably isn't a lot of exercise wear designed for people with disabilities.

Dr. White: Right in addition to the spandex issue, women identified the lack of available equipment. Also, restrooms and showers are often not accessible. We sent out the survey broadly to places like community centers, vocational and rehabilitative organizations and disability groups like the MS society or whatever. And we received a moderate amount of responses.

But then we convened a group of women about 50 of them - at the Holidome over in Topeka. We talked about issues, broke up into groups and came up with certain solutions or thoughts involving actions about how to resolve their concerns. So that was a very positive experience.

CTB: Have you ever had the results of a concerns survey really surprise you?

Dr. White: One I remember in particular was kind of interesting, one we did with Kansans with developmental disabilities. We wanted to do a concerns survey with people with mental retardation, people with psychiatric disabilities, and one with people traumatic brain injury three populations of people we were really very interested in learning more about. We didn't want to set our own agenda for doing what they were doing. So we wanted to have them determine the direction.

At any rate there was a national survey done by the President's council or the ARC, the Association for Retarded Citizens, and what they had set were certain priorities that were quite different than what was articulated from the Kansans. One thing that I thought was really interesting, especially for people with mental retardation, was a big interest in adaptive equipment or assistive technology. So we broke up into the sessions where we talked about the issues. We had the consumers the people with mental retardation talk about the results themselves and then we had support providers like personal attendants and family members going to another group, so they wouldn't exert undue influence on the consumers with mental retardation. Then we had each group process what were the issues and concerns, and they were a little bit different. Some of the main issues were addressed in both groups, but the priorities of the issues were different. And that was kind of a neat thing. That's one reason that it's so important what we're doing with the Community Tool Box the idea of a empowerment.

CTB: Definitely.

Dr. White: We have one concerns survey we're starting on right now we just received a big grant in which one of the first things we're going to be doing is looking at dissemination and utilization of research information. There's a lot of research out there right now on disability issues that isn't understandable for consumers with disabilities its written for professional consumption. So we're going to develop and send out a concerns report. We'll send it out broadly at the national level and find out from consumers their concerns are regarding accessing disability research information that would be valuable to them. As far as how it is assessed, how it's delivered to them. What type of research information are they interested in, how can they best utilize it. So I think that's going to be really exciting and it will help us set our research agenda for the next five years.

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