Kitsap Community Health Priorities
Together, we can grow a healthier Kitsap.
About this Collaborative Process
Like growing a garden, fostering a healthy community starts from the ground up. By listening to our neighbors and analyzing data, we can understand deeply rooted social and environmental issues that affect the health of people in our county. By collaborating with partners, we can create conditions that help everyone thrive and plant the seeds of a healthier future.
Guided by these principles, Kitsap Public Health District leads a multiyear process called Kitsap Community Health Priorities (KCHP) that engages partners and leaders in reviewing data, identifying community health priorities, and implementing strategies to address them. This process results in a community health assessment report and community health improvement implementation plan.
Scroll down to learn more about KCHP and how we are growing a healthier Kitsap together. You can also sign up to receive our seasonal KCHP newsletter.
Continuous Health Improvement
The KCHP process is a multiyear cycle that begins with assessing data and community stories, followed by prioritizing and planning with partners, implementing health improvement strategies, and evaluating the success of those strategies. We are in the Implement and Monitor phase of this cycle. Click on the graphic below to learn more about each phase.
Rooted in Health Equity
In a garden, plants needs the right mix of nutrients, sunlight, and water to grow. In a community each person needs access to the right conditions, resources, and supports to thrive. Our KCHP process focuses on improving health equity, meaning all members of our community have the opportunity to achieve their optimal health.
We follow a health equity-focused framework called MAPP 2.0, Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships to identify and address health issues in our community. We collaborate with partners serving diverse populations to center equity throughout all phases of KCHP:
-
Assessment: We bring together a team that can represent the community to design and decide how data will be collected so a wide range of lived experiences and stories are reflected. We share these findings broadly and support educational opportunities to participate in knowledge sharing.
-
Prioritizing & Planning: Centering community connections, we invite partners to share their vision and desires for community health improvement. Partners hold the power in selecting shared priorities for community health improvement. For each priority, a workgroup of local community partners is established to develop an action plan based on strengths and assets.
-
Implementation: We do the work. Community partners work together on strategies that promote and strengthen health equity in the community.
-
Evaluation: We describe how we are making measurable progress towards the goals of community health priorities.
Learn more about Kitsap Public Health District's health equity work.
Continuous Health Improvement
The KCHP process is a multiyear cycle that begins with assessing data and community stories, followed by prioritizing and planning with partners, implementing health improvement strategies, and evaluating the success of those strategies. We are in the Implement and Monitor phase of this cycle. Tap on the graphic below to learn more about each phase.
Assess
Community health assessments compile data, stories, and evidence to paint a comprehensive picture of the health and wellbeing of the community. Our assessment helps to identify health concerns and the factors that can cause them. This leads to defining community health priorities for community health improvement.
Community assessments
2023 Kitsap Community Health Assessment (CHA)
Compiled by Kitsap Public Health, this report tells the story of our community’s health using quantitative data (percentages and rates) and qualitative data (community voices from focus groups and interviews) organized into topic chapters. It highlights trends, disparities and gaps as well as community resources and assets.
Additional community assessments
Organizations throughout Kitsap also compile assessment reports specific to their areas of expertise. These reports provide valuable information that can be used to inform community health priority selection.
Data summit & open houses
We hosted a data summit with community organizations and leaders on Sept. 26, 2023, where key findings of the CHA were reviewed. We also invited the public to data open houses in different parts of the county and online from October through November 2023.
At both the data summit and community data open houses, participants provided input on key findings and health priorities.
Data summit & open house documents:
Prioritize & Plan
Themes identified in the assessment phase are then prioritized through a collective community process. This process involves consensus building, power analysis, and intersectional approaches. After prioritization, community partners discuss root causes in detail and determine strategies, outcomes, action steps, and measures that will have the most impact on the priorities.
Setting priorities for 2024-2028
On Jan. 11, 2024, more than 70 community organization leaders voted on 17 themes to select three priority areas for our community to work on collectively over the next five years. Participants were asked to consider the following criteria for their voting: Urgency, Impact, Feasibility, and Contribution.
January 2024 Convening documents:
We hosted more than 60 community partners for a Community Health Priorities Implementation Convening on Feb. 8, 2024. At this convening, participants began to create a five-year, shared implementation plan for collaborative action in three priority areas.
February 2024 Convening documents:
Current priorities 2024-2028
These three, intersecting priority areas were selected based on participant votes:
Healthcare
Bridge strengths and reduce barriers in our healthcare system while fostering comprehensive solutions to create a thriving equitable healthcare future.
Housing & Homelessness
Increase safe and sustainable housing options across the continuum and create systems that provide pathways out of homelessness and into stable housing.
Mental & Behavioral Health
Strengthen collaboration among community service organizations to better provide accessible, equitable, and responsive services that meet people where they are and support them to where they want to go.
Implement & Monitor
Community partners work together to implement the action steps outlined in the plan. Action steps are implemented to achieve short, intermediate, and long term outcomes. Community partners are actively working together to improve community health.
Community Health Improvement Plan
Read our Community Health Improvement plan >>
Priority workgroups
In 2025, work groups are advancing goals identified for each of the three KCHP priority areas. For more information on priority workgroups, please contact kchp@kitsappublichealth.org.
Healthcare
Priority workgroups:
-
Healthcare System Workgroup
-
Kitsap Community Perinatal Clinical Leadership Collaborative
Housing & Homelessness
Priority workgroups:
-
Kitsap County Affordable Housing Consortium
Mental & Behavioral Health
Priority workgroups:
-
Opioid Response Partners Meeting
-
Activities hosted by participants of the Strengthening Our Connections Forum and Steering Committee
Evaluate
The community health improvement plan and other evaluation tools are leveraged to monitor process over time. The community health improvement plan is modified and revised as needed and as short, intermediate, and long term outcomes are achieved. Progress is continuously shared with the community.
Stay up to date!
-
Download our fact sheet.
-
Sign up to receive our seasonal KCHP newsletter.
-
For more information about the Kitsap Community Health Priorities process, email kchp@kitsappublichealth.org
.png){kind=logo}
