SETTING HEALTH PRIORITIES - COMMUNITY BOARDS ACCURATELY REFLECT THE PREFERENCES OF THE COMMUNITY RESIDENTS

Setting priorities remains an important part of healthcare planning an d program management. Local community input is often sought in governm ent or publicly sponsored programs. Community policy/advisory boards a re a common vehicle to represent the community's interests in program decisions and direction. Questions remain whether community boards acc urately represent their communities' views. As part of a planning effo rt within Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, local District Health Cou ncils (DHCs) have been created to provide assistance and leadership in systemization and improvement of the healthcare in communities with t he poorest health status in the region. We sought to discover how clos ely the perceptions of health priorities of DHC members agreed with th ose of community members. A structured five-point Likert scale questio nnaire of 22 of the most common diseases and conditions known to impac t health were used for a random digit dialing telephone interview with a sample of 286 households from three underserved communities. The sa me interview was repeated with all DHC members (n = 80) representing t hose communities. Sociodemographic profiles and health-related behavio rs were also collected. The results of this interview indicate a close and substantial agreement in priorities between community members and DHC members. Psychosocial conditions such as violence and substance a buse were ranked as the highest priorities by both groups. In contrast , sociodemographics and healthcare behavior differed significantly bet ween DHC members and community's residents. This study demonstrates th at these community policy/advisory boards can closely reflect the view s of the communities they represent. Attention to their differences in sociodemographics and healthcare experiences with the community may s trengthen their role even more.