118 - Assessing Community Need on the Community's Terms

Abstract Information: Cascadia Health is a non-profit organization located in the greater Portland metro area of Oregon. Cascadia provides integrated healthcare, including primary care, mental health and substance use treatment services, crisis services, housing, and more. Cascadia is both a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center (CCBHC), and provides services regardless of an individual's ability to pay. Cascadia's designations require regularly conducted community needs assessments. Cascadia chose to focus its most recent community needs assessment on the communities surrounding its four outpatient health centers. Each of these communities has unique population demographics, histories, healthcare needs, and comfort levels with outside evaluators. By attending Neighborhood Association meetings in the neighborhoods where Cascadia’s health centers are located, the authors learned that there was no one-size-fits-all approach to gathering data on community healthcare needs. Community feedback and preference guided what methods were used in each community.

This Roundtable Discussion has four aims. First, the authors will share what methods were used and the rationale for choosing those methods. Second, the authors will summarize the results of this needs assessment and the implications of those results. Third, the authors will discuss the limitations of this needs assessment, lessons learned, and ways in which the goal of assessing community need on community terms was not met. Fourth, the authors will invite feedback on how Cascadia can improve the needs assessment process in 2026 to continue to build on participatory practices.