2025 Alexander County Community Health Assessment

Executive Summary

VISION STATEMENT

The mission of the Alexander County Health Department is to promote, protect, and ensure the health and well-being of every citizen in Alexander County.

OVERVIEW

In the practice of public health, the health of the community is monitored and evaluated by examining key indicators such as leading causes of death, access to health care, and health trends such as nutrition. Every four years, the Alexander County Health Department conducts a state developed process known as the Community Health Assessment (CHA). Findings from the CHA are used by the Health Department to conduct strategic planning and to guide collaborate community action addressing identified priority issues. The CHA is also used to meet the requirements for state accreditation of local health departments.

The 2025 Community Health Assessment is designed to:

Evaluate the quality of life in Alexander County.
Define Alexander County’s needs, priorities, and health assets.
Identify various trends in the chronic disease, cause of death, and high-risk behaviors within Alexander County.
Show the systematic collection, assembly, analysis, and dissemination of information about health in Alexander County.

LEADERSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP

Alexander County Health Department (ACHD) works with a variety of community agencies in providing care and services to residents of Alexander County. ACHD is not the only responsible party for improved health outcomes in the community, as improving overall health is a collaborative process. Currently, Alexander County does not have a hospital; therefore, the CHA is conducted by the Alexander County Health Department. ACHD did not receive help from a privately contracted vendor to conduct the 2025 CHA, but did utilize DellaRe Consulting for graphics in the CHA Report.

Partnerships	Number of Partners
Public Health	1
Hospital/Health Care System	0
Healthcare Provider(s)- other than behavioral health	9
Behavioral Healthcare Provider(s)	4
Dental Health Provider(s)	5
EMS Provider	1
Pharmacies	5
Community Organizations- advocacy, charitable, NGO	10
Businesses- employers, not organizations	57
Educational Institution- colleges, university	2
Public School System	1
Media/Communication Outlet(s)	3
Public Member(s)	18
Other- specify	4- Chiropractors 6-Veterinarians

Alexander County Health Department collaborated with representatives from Alexander County Department of Social Services (DSS), Alexander County Schools, Alexander County Partnership for Children, Alexander County Head Start and Early Head Start, Alexander County Emergency Management, Alexander County Cooperative Extension, and citizens from the community.

DATA COLLECTION

The Alexander County Health Department utilized both primary (data collected directly) and secondary (data provided by other organizations identified) sources to compile the data.

Primary data collection tool, the 2025 Alexander County Community Health Assessment Survey, was distributed to the public in both web-based formats and paper copies around the community from February 2025 until June 2025. Paper and electronic copies were both available in English and Spanish and facilitated broad participation.
A link to the 2025 Alexander County Community Health Assessment survey was posted to www.alexanderhealth.org, Alexander County Health Department Facebook Page, and sent via email to all county employees and community partners. Paper versions were distributed at the Health Department, Libraries, Community Events, and a QR code was published in the Taylorsville Times Newspaper and distributed to the public. One thousand one hundred sixty responses were collected through these formats. However, we could only use results from one thousand one hundred and one surveys, due to the fact that fifty-nine stated they did not live in Alexander County.
Additional primary data was collected through a Male Focus Group performed by the Health Department Health Educator I in September of 2025 due to the low male response rate on the primary survey tool.
Secondary data was gathered by the Alexander County Health Department Health Educator I & Preparedness Coordinator/Epidemiology from November 2024-January 2025 from local, state, and national sources and also collected from outside organizations. Data was used in assessing the severity of health issues within Alexander County.

KEY FINDINGS

In September 2025, members of the Healthy Alexandrians Task Force reviewed secondary data, CHA survey results, along with additional secondary data provided by DellaRe Consulting via PowerPoint presentation. Indicators specific to the following eight areas were made available.

Accessibility of Care
Mental/Brain Health
Substance Use
Healthy Eating
Healthy Living
Disability Support
Elder Care
Dental Health

Following the September meeting, members voted to narrow these down to the following four areas via email vote:

Access to Care, Mental Health, Substance Use, and Healthy Living.

In October of 2025, members of the Healthy Alexandrian Task Force met again to make formal priority selections utilizing the Hanlon Method, which includes the following ranking criteria: Severity, Magnitude, and Feasibility.

Next Steps: 2026-2029 ALEXANDER COUNTY COMMUNITY HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PLAN (CHIP)/STRATEGIC PLAN

Utilizing the data from the Community Health Improvement Process, a CHIP was developed in order to address the priority areas of concern.

This Scorecard is being used to illustrate the priority health needs and efforts to address them utilizing the Results-Based Accountability/Scorecard process through the North Carolina Division on Public Health and Clear Impact. More information available at:

Priorities

For the 2022 Community Health Assessment, the priorities chosen were Mental Health, Substance Use, Elder Care, Childcare and Parenting, and Healthy Living. For the 2025 CHA, similar priorities were chosen, with some removed due to improvements in data, potentially as a result of programming.

The following are the CHA priorities chosen for the 2025 cycle:

MENTAL HEALTH

HEALTHY LIVING

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