community health needs assessment
The mission of Dayton Children’s is the relentless pursuit of optimal health for every child in our reach. To fulfill our mission, we must understand the status of children’s health in our community and the barriers that exist to achieving optimal health. This community health needs assessment (CHNA) provides us with a snapshot of children’s health and gives us actionable data to pursue optimal health for all children in our region.
We know a significant amount of a child’s health is driven by social and behavioral factors including education, housing, access to food, and safe neighborhoods. In this assessment, we were intentional in focusing our efforts to identify specific needs of the children in communities where we have seen some of the greatest health disparities.
To identify these disparities in an equitable way, this community health needs assessment not only considers secondary data from public health and other publicly available sources, but also has a significant amount of community input into the issues of greatest concern around children’s health. The rich information gathered directly from community members and parents lays a significant foundation for identifying meaningful health improvement strategies. The Dayton Children’s Center for Health Equity team conducted the health assessment using various methods to obtain this relevant information.
In addition, we have used this report to develop and refine strategies in our 2023 Implementation Strategy Plan that focus on improved health outcomes, access to care, and health equity so children in our community can truly thrive. In doing so, we know that healthy children will lead to healthy adults.
We thank our many community partners who participated in the 2023 Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Strategy Plan process. Partners came from the five counties in our primary service area and represented public health departments, child-serving organizations and social service providers. We also thank the hundreds of parents and residents who took the time to complete our community survey as they are the critical voice for their children.
Formally approved by our Board of Trustees in June 2023, the 2023 Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Strategy Plan comply with Internal Revenue Service requirements and lay the groundwork for investments in our community’s most precious resource – our children.
