Community members prioritize health assessment

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Community representatives prioritized the issues determined from quality of life surveys taken over the summer.

On Thursday, issues from the 2017 Muskingum County Community Health Improvement Plan were prioritized.

Kylie Jones, Community Health Planner, said there were about 35 community members in attendance to represent various agencies in Zanesville.

“For the past 18 months we’ve been working on the community health assessment here in Muskingum County,” said Jones.

The 16 issues that had to be prioritized were; access to healthcare, cancer, community and civicism, disability, drug addiction, education, employment, food security, housing, local government, mental health, obesity, public assistance, recreation, safety/security and transportation.

“We’re looking at how healthy our community is, how well we’re supporting our community residents and what we can do moving forward for them to have a good life in Muskingum County,” said Jones.

They had to rank the issues in order of importance. The ranking system had five key components; magnitude, severity, vulnerability, feasibility and if the problem was worsening.

“We pick 3 or 4 main priorities that we will be focusing on for the next 3 years,” said Jones.

Once the outcome is determined the results will be released on the health departments website.