SUMMARY
Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives (HNI) is a replicable, neighborhood-based, participatory approach to advance community health in meaningful and measurable ways. The HNI goal is to create systemic change and measurable improvement in overall community health status and individual well-being.
MODEL DESCRIPTION
The HNI, now active in ten Houston-area neighborhoods, involves an eight-step process beginning with site selection. Criteria include statistics from the SLEHC Community Health Information System (CHIS), and community readiness. The second phase, investigation, involves an in-depth community assessment including both quantitative and qualitative research resulting in a community appreciation event and analysis of health issues discovered during these two initial phases. This investigation phase culminates into a Neighborhood Assessment Report, which documents demographics, interviews with community members and a neighborhood health analysis. Once reviewed and approved by neighborhood members, this report is published both hard copy and online.
The next series of stages involves collaboration and priority setting. A neighborhood collaboration forms and begins to set strategic priorities for their community. This priority setting leads them to consensus building on key health priorities. These priorities are introduced to the broader community and funders to facilitate interventions to bridge delivery gaps. Overtime, capacity building efforts strengthen the collaborative membership enabling sustainability and continuous informed action.
The evaluation phase culminates the HNI eight-step model providing time series analysis of key health indicators, neighborhood report cards and documented meaningful results. SLEHC serves as a facilitator of the eight-step model to assist neighborhoods in gaining access to financial and informational resources, to guide interventions and evaluation, and to advance community health.
While SLEHC’s HNI model continues to evolve as it is adapted by individual neighborhoods, one of the most promising outcomes is how well the process serves as an “incubator” for FQHC development. From the documentation of needs and assets, to the mobilization of a broad neighborhood coalition of working partners, to the creation of report cards, the HNI model prepares communities for the intensive preparation and application required for successful Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) designation resulting in a more effective health service delivery system.
Healthy Neighborhoods include:
More Information:
To learn more information about the Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives model, please contact us.
