Vision Statement

The Community Health Assessment process advances Catawba County Public Health’s vision of leading the way to a healthier community by engaging partner organizations and residents to better understand community needs, identify opportunities for action, and build relationships around shared goals. The Community Health Assessment provides critical clarity around priorities that is directly informed by the community, strengthening opportunities for collaboration and engagement as we work to improve health and well-being for all of Catawba County.

Leadership

The Community Health Assessment is led by Catawba County Public Health and facilitated by our Health Promotion and Strategy Team. Both of our local health systems are core partners in the assessment process, and we intentionally align our collective goals, priorities, and strategies related to community health. We also facilitate a collaboratively led approach through our LiveWell Catawba coalition and partners. Catawba County Public Health contracted with DellaRe Consulting, a public health consulting firm specializing in community health development, to support the facilitation of the Community Health Assessment, data collection and analysis, and compilation of this report. We do not currently participate in a regional Community Health Assessment partnership or process, but are actively engaged in discussions among Region IV public health leaders regarding future opportunities for collaboration.

Partnerships/ Collaborations

Partnerships were a foundational strength of our process. We worked with multi-sector partners across the community to advise planning, engage with community members, and determine priorities informed by diverse perspectives.

Regional/ Contracted Services

[Custom text]

Theoretical Framework/ Model

We adopted the County Health Rankings population health model developed by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as our 2023 Community Health Assessment theoretical framework. This allowed us to identify upstream issues that influence health outcomes and to more inclusively define how all parts of a community can impact health. This framework also guides the Healthy NC 2030 State Health Improvement Plan and Healthy People 2030 nationally, allowing for opportunities for alignment and comparisons across the local, state, and national levels. Locally, it provides a shared context for meaningful conversations and intentional collaboration with multi-sector partners around drivers of health that are not limited to healthcare or public health-specific measures and outcomes. Leveraging this model to guide this process allows us to shape priorities that create opportunities for good health and quality of life for all of our community while allowing for intentional efforts specific to certain health outcomes or populations.

Collaborative Process Summary

This Community Health Assessment officially launched in January 2023 at a LiveWell Catawba coalition meeting, serving as the Community Health Assessment Kick-Off and Defining “Health” Workshop. This workshop allowed us to engage coalition members in defining what “health” means to our partners and community, beginning the process of scoping our assessment process based on community needs and perspectives. In the following two months, our Health Promotion and Strategy Team facilitated 28 Community Conversations hosted by a diversity of partners across the county to engage residents directly in exploring community needs, strengths, and areas of interest. The qualitative data collected during this phase provided critical guidance on structuring data collection, including developing the 2023 Community Health Assessment Survey to reflect our community and partners' perceptions, needs, and priorities.

In April 2023, we facilitated another LiveWell Catawba coalition meeting to provide an update on trends discovered through the Community Conversations series and to begin survey distribution planning with partners. This began our feedback and insight development phase, with the Community Health Assessment Survey distributed throughout the community from May through July. We then brought together community members and partner organizations for Data Walk Listening Sessions around emerging trends based on primary data collected through the survey and secondary data analysis. These sessions provided critical insight into barriers, opportunities for action, and alignment across initially disparate indicators.

We then transitioned into our final priority selection phase, taking all the collected data and feedback gathered into a coalition-wide Data Walk and Priority Setting Workshop in September. The feedback from this meeting aligned with community insight from the Community Conversations and survey and clarity from the secondary data analysis, which informed the final selection of our community health priorities: Access to Healthy Food, Brain Health, and Safe, Engaging, and Active Spaces.

Key Findings

• The most significant gap in life expectancy is based on neighborhood census tract, with the lowest life expectancy at 64.6 years in Long View (tract 107) compared to the highest at 82.6 years in Northwest Hickory (tract 105.02).
• Social isolation and community connectivity was identified as a leading concern and contributor to poor health and quality of life consistently across Community Conversations, with 47.3% of survey respondents reporting feeling connected to their community.
• While overall infant mortality has decreased both in Catawba County and statewide between 2007-2011 and 2017- 2021, disparities impacting Black and Latino infants continue.
• At the publishing of this report, an additional 4,037 Catawba County residents have already enrolled through Medicaid expansion. Sources cited in each section. There were 4,146 deaths from diet-related health conditions like heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes from 2016 to 2021, 43.5% of total deaths.
• The rate of deaths related to drug overdose has increased by 104% from 2015 to 2022. Pregnancy among 15-19-year-olds has decreased by 18% between 2012- 2016 and 2017-2021.
• There are significant food insecurity disparities impacting Black and Latino residents.
• 42.5% of Catawba County third graders read at grade level.
• 16.5% of adults report poor mental health 14 or more days per month.
• 59.6% of households have an income of $50,000 or less.
• The highest rate of households spending 30% or more of their income on housing costs is among renters with household incomes less than $50,000 per year at 62.8%. This group makes up 15% of all Catawba County households.
• There are disparities in self-reported poor health based on neighborhood census tract. Long View (tract 107), Ridgeview (tract 109), Southeast Hickory (tract 110), and East Newton (tract 113) all have higher reported rates of adults spending 14 or more days in poor health.

Health Priorities

Read the full report here.

Access the Catawba County Community Resource Guide here.

Next Steps

In December 2023, we hosted a final coalition meeting to celebrate the launch of our 2023 Community Health Assessment and 2024-2027 Community Health Improvement Plan. We reviewed assessment results, explored strategies and partnership opportunities, and extended an invitation and call for collaboration as we work together to improve health and quality of life for all of Catawba County through intentional efforts to advance our shared health priorities. We will continue disseminating findings from the 2023 Community Health Assessment through our community partners, encouraging participation in our health priority workgroups that the Health Promotion and Strategy Team will continue to facilitate. We will also continue to explore opportunities for alignment with other local coalitions and planning activities.