Mapping Aligning Processes and Outcomes: Determining and Measuring Community Goals and Needs

This brief highlights recent research on community voice in aligning efforts to better understand the process of establishing community goals and needs. The researchers draw from earlier research to identify several questions that can be asked to better understand the process of establishing community goals and needs with the ultimate goal of making and measuring, progress toward meeting them.

This brief focuses on four overarching questions:

1. Who is the community?
2. How ready are institutional partners to address community needs?
3. Who is defining community goals and needs?
4. What process is being used to define community goals and needs?

Aligning Systems for Health: Health Care + Public Health + Social Services, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and managed by the Georgia Health Policy Center, is focused on learning from stakeholders across the nation about effective ways to align these three sectors to better meet people’s goals and needs.