Local Health Departments’ Performance of Community Health Assessment, Community Improvement Plan, and Strategic Planning: Do these activities predict plans for seeking accreditation?

Research Objective: To examine the nature of relationship between LHDs' intentions to seek Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) accreditation in the future and having completed within five years the three PHAB pre-requisites: community health assessment (CHA), community health improvement plan (CHIP), and the agency-wide strategic plan.

Data Sets and Sources: We used data from the NACCHO's 2010 National Profile of Local Health Departments (2010 Profile Study) survey, administered to 2656 LHDs.

Analysis: Our bivariate analyses included Somers-D test for the nominal variables and Kendal's Tau-b for the ordinal variables. For the multivariate analysis of the ordinal dependent variable, we performed multinomial logistic regression.

Principal Findings: Our multivariate analysis showed that completion of community health assessment or community health improvement plan within the past five years had negative association with LHDs' intention to seek accreditation, and recent completion of a strategic plan had no association with accreditation, after controlling for the potential confounding factors.

Conclusion: Contrary to our expectations, our analyses did not show a positive association between completion of the PHAB accreditation prerequisites and local health departments' intentions to seek PHAB accreditation. However, a positive association existed between intent to seek accreditation and plans to complete a strategic plan in the next year.

Implications for the Field of PHSSR: As agencies prepare for accreditation, it is important to understand how intentions to seek accreditation are related to the current level of readiness based on the three PHAB prerequisites. Our presentation will include important implications for LHDs, PHAB and its partners.