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Development of the 2024-2025 Dare County Community Health Needs Assessment is currently underway and the community’s input is being sought again in the process – now to help local health organizations prioritize the most pressing needs in the community.

Conducted every three years in partnership with Outer Banks Health Hospital, the Dare County Department of Health & Human Services and Healthy Carolinians of the Outer Banks, the completed assessment is an important tool in determining the health status of the community. The assessment, which will be completed in the spring of 2025, helps to identify resources needed to address health and social problems as well as provide a plan to improve the health status of the community.

The information within the assessment is obtained through primary data, such as community surveys, key informant interviews and focus groups, as well as secondary data, which includes statistics from the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health organizations.

The Healthy Carolinians of the Outer Banks is now in the process of creating prioritization rankings in order to identify the areas of greatest need as well as the feasibility of addressing the issues that were determined to be of the highest priority. These rankings are created based on watch list items that are identified from data gathered in the assessment.

The 2024-2025 watch list includes the following eight categories: mental health, substance use, cancer, unintentional injuries, access to care, older adults, health behaviors and the economy.

Early in the process, the partnership received more than 1,000 surveys from community members who offered their input on health concerns. The partnership is seeking the community’s input again to identify the top few health priorities by completing this survey – surveymonkey.com/r/DareCHNA – by Tuesday, August 27, 2024.

Following the prioritization process, task forces will be continued or created and action plans developed and then monitored in order to track the success of the efforts that are undertaken to address the most pressing health needs throughout the Dare County community.

For more information on prioritization or the Community Health Needs Assessment, contact Kelly Fleming with Dare County Department of Health & Human Services at kelly.fleming@darenc.gov or 252-475-5036 or Jenn Schwartzenberg with Outer Banks Health at jennifer.schwartzenberg@theobh.com or 252-449-5933.

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