News Release: New 2025-28 Local Health Improvement Priorities Set
Thursday, February 6, 2025 - FREDERICK, MD – The Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County, the Frederick County Health Department, and Frederick Health has been working for over a year on a new Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). This process was based on the guidance of NACCHO’s MAPP 2.0 and included more community involvement and input than ever before. The culmination of this process is the selection of the new 2025-2028 local health improvement priorities (LHIP) for Frederick County, which are:
Food & Nutrition: Lack of Access to Affordable Healthy Food
Housing: Inadequate Affordable Housing Supply*
Mental Health: Lack of Awareness of Accessibility of Resources
Mental Health: Stigma Around Mental Health
Racial Equity & Justice: Institutional and Systemic Racism
*Multiple agencies are currently studying the housing needs of Frederick County. Based on the results and proposed strategies, public involvement may be through another process instead of a LHIP work group.
These priorities were selected by the Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County board of directors based on community feedback received during the Public Input Session held on January 22, 2025. Over 100 responses from the Public Input Session survey ranked these five topics as a high priority for county residents and expressed strong interest in working on them.
Healthier Frederick hosted a webinar to announce the new priorities and provide an overview of the triennial CHNA process and LHIP Workgroups, including what they are and what is expected of Workgroup members.
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Get involved! The next step in building community health involves bringing together members of the public and community partners to form Local Health Improvement Planning Workgroups. Anyone interested in joining a workgroup on one or more of these topics is welcome. Diverse voices will strengthen the foundations of community health. Please complete the LHIP Interest Form below by the end of February to be invited by email to the first Workgroup meeting.
LHIP Workgroup Interest Form (English): https://forms.office.com/r/vJiEU6j5i9
LHIP Workgroup Interest Form (Spanish): https://forms.office.com/r/YDhK8HvKkf
Workgroup expectations and guidelines are available for review here. If you have additional questions about the time commitment and/or responsibilities of a work group member, please fill out the form and enter your questions, or contact Malcolm Furgol, Executive Director, Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County, at Malcolm@HealthierFrederick.org or 240-739-2897.
All of the data that was collected and used to identify potential priorities will be included in the upcoming release of the 2025 Frederick County Community Health Needs Assessment along with an overview of the process followed. A draft version of this report will be available in March for public review and comment and a final version in May 2025.
Additional information on the Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County is available at HealthierFrederick.org. Information about previous community health assessments is available here. Information about the Local Health Improvement Process is available here.
This message is sponsored by the Coalition for a Healthier Frederick County, Frederick Health, and the Frederick County Health Department.