SSM Health is surveying the health needs of Centralia and its surrounding area through the Community Health Needs Assessment.

Taken every three years, the five-minute, online survey is designed to advise the not-for-profit healthcare system of the most pressing pain points within the community, enabling southern Illinois hospitals to prioritize those issues.

“The Community Needs Assessment is a tool we use to help us address and identify what the health needs and priorities are in the community, and how we can go about providing interventions or tools to support and address those needs,” said Julie Robertson-Brooks, community health manager of Southern Illinois Region of SSM Health.

Robertson-Brooks said the 2021 survey showed three primary areas of need, consisting of mental health, substance abuse, and nutrition/weight/exercise.

“We are in the process of reevaluating the community. Now that the three years is up, we are going to do the same assessment,” said Robertson-Brooks, who advised the survey will be available for an eight-week period. “We will identify if those needs have improved in any way, or if new needs have arisen. This survey is our first step in that, so we want to engage the community, get their input on what their values are, what the strengths are, and what are the areas that need improvement.”

Robertson-Brooks continued, “We use [the survey] to guide our conversations in focus groups, and we use it guide our conversations in interviews, where we not only talk with community members, but we talk with community leaders, hospital leaders, and healthcare leaders to see what kind of data supports the priorities that our community has identified and where we go from there.”

Robertson-Brooks said the survey has been updated since 2021, and that she hopes to see an even larger turnout of survey-takers in 2024.

“There have been a couple of edits and changes since the last time we took the assessment. We use the information we received last time to better our work and our process,” she said. “In 2021, we had about 500 survey respondents. Coming out of COVID, we had to a lot of this online, there was a no in-person engagement opportunities. We relied heavily on our survey respondents for information and data collection then.”

“This year, we will be doing kind of a trickle-down format where we engage the community via the survey, but also more in-person engagement,” Robertson-Brooks continued. “We would very much like to see the same amount of survey respondents, if not more, than we got last time.”

To take the Health Needs Assessment, please visit https://bit.ly/3uLSy4d.

A community partner with the Centralia Chamber of Commerce, contributing to numerous organizations in several communities, SSM Health is a not-for-profit healthcare system based in St. Louis with hospitals and care centers located throughout Illinois and Missouri.

SSM Health

1000 E. McCord Street, Centralia, IL

618-899-1082

www.ssmhealth.com