REP staff recently had the pleasure of meeting Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) staff members involved in the production of their Community Need Index (CNI).

The CNI is a very nifty and well-crafted index that measures the health of a community. It takes into account several indicators related to community health including, but to name a few, income, language isolation, educational attainment, insurance coverage, and housing. CHW has conducted multiple statistical tests that show that a high CNI score is a valid indicator of poor community health and they have published a detailed report on the methodology behind the CNI. The CNI is calculated at the zip code level for California (2006 CNI) and the country (2007 CNI). The REP was not surprised to find that areas in Sacramento County with a high CNI score tended to be in low-income communities of color. We think that the use of the CNI, particularly with GIS, could be a wonderful tool to activate support for community health initiatives. It would also be a great tool to evaluate whether the health related services you organization provides are being directed at the communities with the highest need.

If you are interested in obtaining the CNI data or more information about the CNI, we encourage you to contact CHW.