[Guidance: This section includes story you collect during your process.]

The "Story Behind the Curve" helps us understand why the data on [state the indicator in plain language, e.g. adults with diabetes, children born addicted to drugs, or people dying from drug overdoses] is the way that it is in our community. When we understand the root causes of our community problems, we have a better chance of finding the right solutions, together.

[Guidance: What it helping and what is hurting this issue? What conditions, policies, programs or other factors are helping us do as well as we are doing? What conditions, policies, programs or other factors are contributing to this problem and keeping us from doing better?

You could organize your What's Helping and What's Hurting by what do people most affected by this issue say? What do key stakeholders say? Challenge assumptions.  Ask “why” to get to root-causes?

Story data can come from many sources:  during Whole Distance Exercise with your coalition or work group; during listening sessions/focus groups with people affected by the issue; the Healthy Impact Key Informant Interview responses on your topic; interviews or surveys with key partners in your community; listening at meetings or community events; etc.

Recommended RBA tool for working on story behind the indicator, identifying partners, and thinking about what works (strategies): Population Turn-the-Curve Report]

What's Helping? These are the positive forces at work in our community and beyond that influence this issue in our community.

[Guidance: a prompting question can be, "Why are things as good as they are and not worse?" Ask "why?" multiple time to a single cause to get to root causes. Try to get input about what's help at the individual, organizational, environment and policy levels. You can also include additional number data/indicators that relate to your headline indicator as part of the story of what's helping.]

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4

What's Hurting? These are the negative forces at work in our community and beyond that influence this issue in our community.

[Guidance: a prompting question can be, "Why are things as bad as they are and getting in the way of things getting better? Try to get input about what's hurting at the individual, organizational, environment and policy levels. You can also include additional number data/indicators that relate to your headline indicator as part of the story of what's hurting.]

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4

The partners for this [insert program type] include:

[Guidance: This section will include:

• Partner ideas of what works to do better, based on Story Behind the Curve and Partners/Who has a role to play to do better, from a Whole Distance exercise.
• What is currently working in your community 
• Evidence-based strategies 
  • Include evidence-based strategies (including from CDC HI-5 Interventions, CDC Community Health Improvement Navigator, CDC 6/18 Initiative, CDC The Community Guide, County Health Rankings – What Works for Health, and Healthy People 2020 – Evidence-based resources); promising practices in the community; and/or innovative suggestions from stakeholders and residents most affected by the issue.
• What people most affected by the issue think work 

The sample headings and text below will help organize this information.]

The following actions have been identified by our [team/coalition/partners] and community members as ideas for what can work for our community to make a difference on [name health problem].

Actions and Approaches Identified by Our Partners These are actions and approaches that our partners think can make a difference on [name health problem].

• Action/Approach 1
• Action/Approach 2
• Action/Approach 3
• Action/Approach 4
• Action/Approach 5

What is Currently Working in Our Community These are actions and approaches that are currently in place in our community to make a difference on [name health problem].

• Action/Approach 1
• Action/Approach 2
• Action/Approach 3
• Action/Approach 4
• Action/Approach 5 [Guidance: you can insert links to websites with more information on current actions and approaches in your community]

Evidence-Based Strategies These are actions and approaches that have been shown to make a difference on [name health problem].

[Guidance: The second column above should reflect that you considered strategies at multiple levels of the socioecological model.]

What Community Members Most Affected by [name health problem] Say These are the actions and approaches recommended by members of our community who are most affected by [name issue]

• Action/Approach 1
• Action/Approach 2
• Action/Approach 3

Process for Selecting Priority Strategies

[In this section, write a brief paragraph to describe how you prioritized this list to get to the selected actions listed as programs on this Scorecard. Describe process and criterion used to select 3 strategies. Criterion to consider: Can we feasibly implement a strategy? (based on resources available, community will, etc.) Is the strategy high-leverage (i.e. significant impact for small or moderate effort vs. small impact for large effort)? Does this strategy align with our community values?  Can you produce a specific action for the strategy? Does the strategy address one or more of the root-causes of the issue that you uncovered in your exploration of the “Story Behind the Indicators”?] Recommended tools for selecting priority strategies: Strategy Prioritization Worksheet; Identifying Priority Strategies Worksheet.