Republic of the Philippines

SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY

Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya
School of Health and Natural Science
Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science

COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
- Identifying the strengths, assets, needs and challenges of a specified community.
* Assets- skills, talents and abilities of individuals as well as the resources that local institutions
contribute to the community
- Assets/resources necessary for program’s success: Organizations, people (volunteers,
community members, and experts)
- Involves an evaluation of the current situation in a community, a judgement of what the
preferred or desired situation in that community would be, and comparison of the actual and
desired situation for the purpose of prioritizing concerns.
- Referred to as “Community Needs Assessment” – gaps between what services currently exist in a
community and what should exist.

Types of Community Needs:

1. Perceived needs – based on feelings and concerns of community members

2. Expressed needs – what individuals have already voiced as a need.
3. Absolute needs – universal needs including those for survival (food, water, safety and clothing)
4. Relative needs – based on equity, current circumstances and the norm

Principles

- Residents are the best experts on the community in which they live
- All residents have skills, abilities and talents that they can contribute to the community
- A strong community is built upon the talents and resources of its members

Purposes

- Create a coalition action plan

- Establish objectives for a program or intervention
- Select the strategies to use in a program or intervention
- Establish a baseline for evaluating progress in the community
- Identify new ideas, strategies, partners and resources that can be used in working toward a
common goal
 Republic of the Philippines
SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya
School of Health and Natural Science
Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science

Types of Assessments

1. Community Meeting
-Town hall/public forum
- Formal or informal public gathering that aims to discuss issues, voice concerns and express
preferences for community priorities
- Gives people a chance to express their views
- Can involve a fairly large group of people at one time
- Can help explore potential solutions

*Challenges
- Difficult to maintain open, comfortable and relaxed environment
- May be influenced by social constraints including gender disparities, power dynamics, cultural
norms, etc.
- May be dominated by one or two vocal participants to the exclusion of others

2. Asset inventory
- Identifies the types of resources in a community (people, physical environment, institutions,
services)
- The results are used to create positive changes
- Maximize available sources
- Encourage the creation of broad networks to effect change
- Help identify areas of community member interest
- Can be maintained, expanded, and used repeatedly

*Challenges
- Time consuming
- identifying connections can be difficult

3. Survey
- Common method of collecting information and opinions
- Can be administered through email, by phone or personal
- Can be administered remotely
- Results can be repeated
- Generally inexpensive to administer

*Challenges
- Identifying prospective respondents and obtaining their personal contact information can be
difficult
- Emailed surveys are ineffective in places where internet access is limited
- Phone surveys may be subject to sample or interviewer bias
 Republic of the Philippines
SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya
School of Health and Natural Science
Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science

- Response rates for remote surveys are generally low compared within-person assessments
- Written surveys are ineffective with illiterate populations
- Written surveys don’t allow for follow-up questions

*Types:

a. Multiple choice questions

b. Rating scales

c. open-ended questions

d. demographic questions

4. Interview
- One on one conversations between a facilitator and respondent
- Gain deeper understanding of the respondent’s ideas and feelings
- Interviewers have freedom to veer off script and ask follow-up questions
- The respondent is more likely to share personal opinions freely
- The most accurate and thorough way to obtain qualitative data from the respondent

*Challenges
- Time consuming
- Reach only one respondent at a time
- Requires practice and some degree of skill
- Finding willing respondents for impromptu interviews can be difficult

5. Focus group
- Carefully guided discussion used to determine a target group’s opinions on a particular idea
- Requires careful planning and a skilled discussion facilitator
- Most focus groups consist of 6 to 12 diverse stakeholders
- This approach promotes self-disclosure
- Quick and easy to set up
- Group dynamics can provide useful information that individual data collection doesn’t
- Effective with illiterate populations

*Challenges
- Facilitators are susceptible to bias
- Discussions can be dominated by few individuals
- Analyzing data can be time consuming
- They provide information about the group, not individual participants
 Republic of the Philippines
SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya
School of Health and Natural Science
Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science

6. Community Mapping
- Requires few resources and little time and can be adapted for participants of virtually any age or
educational background
- Individuals or group draw a map of their community, marking certain points of importance and
noting how often they visit these places.
- Identify how they use community resources and any barriers to accessing them
- Compare perception of the importance of various community resources
- Generate ideas for community improvement
- Lively and engaging activity
- It encourages participants to discuss how they might improve their community

*Challenges
- Difficult to analyze results because the data gathered is in visual format
- Drawing conclusions from the maps and determining next steps may require additional
assessment activities

*What to map?
- Places of residence
- Places of importance such as markets, religious centers, schools, community centers, parks,
etc.
-areas where people congregate, water resources, etc.
Places they’d like to add to the community

Conducting Community Assessment

- Consider the population, place, attitudes and values of community members

- Before conducting assessment, there are questions to be consider:
1. What is going to be assessed?
2. What is already known?
3. What data will need to be collected?
4. How and by whom will data be collected?
5. How and by whom will data be analyzed?
- Steps:
1. Determine the purpose and scope of assessment – whether specific or large population
2. Define the goals and objectives of the assessment
3. Select data collection methods to use – surveys, interviews, focus groups and observation
4. Design the necessary instruments and procedures for data collection
5. Pilot test the instruments and procedures
6. Prepare a timeline and budget
 Republic of the Philippines
SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya
School of Health and Natural Science
Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science

7. Collect the data

8. Analyze the data
9. Prepare and disseminate a report of the findings
10. Evaluate the assessment’s merit and worth – what worked well, what problems were
encountered and what could have been done better

Notes in Conducting Community Assessment

- Prepare multiple reports using a variety of media

- Include executive summary
- Use language that is easy to understand
- Highlight the information that community members perceive as most important
- Explain why the needs assessment was complete.
- Acknowledge limitations and alternative explanations for the findings
- Keep the information relevant, practical, credible and understandable

Tips in Conducting Community Assessment

- Remain open minded

- Choose participants carefully
- Include overlooked or marginalized groups
- Consider yourself an outsider
- Avoid promising a project before your program makes a formal decision
- Empower stakeholders

Outcomes of Community Needs Assessment

1. Policy Change – laws and regulations

2. Systems Change – includes social norms, institution, or system and often goes hand in hand with
policy change
3. Environmental Change – involves physical, social, or economic factors