Residents of Vance and Granville counties have until around mid-July to help Granville Vance Public Health gather information for the 2025 Community Health Assessment.
GVPH Director Lisa Harrison said the survey takes 15 or 20 minutes to complete, and the data will be used to guide the health department in developing programs that address health priorities in the two counties it serves over the next four years.
Harrison called residents in the two counties “our main customer, our main patient,” and the surveys will help her and health department staff understand what the priorities are within the community.
Anyone with a computer or a cell phone can access the survey, Harrison said on Monday’s TownTalk. Find it here: https://survey.sogolytics.com/r/GN8UoSat
Paper copies also are available by calling GVPH’s Oxford office at 919.693.2141.
The most recent community health assessment, completed in 2021, revealed that folks are interested in affordable health care options, focusing on the health and safety of youth and substance use prevention and treatment options.
Having those three priorities helps Harrison and others focus attention – and money – on areas that are important to folks locally.
“It is really critical that we figure out priorities,” Harrison said. “It is your chance, as our community, to tell us really what’s important to you and what you want us to focus our limited resources on.”
Using data from the community health assessment helps Harrison and her team focus on the right issues, she said.
She hopes to get about 500 completed surveys from each county.
“We don’t do anything in public health without community at our side and as our focus,” Harrison said. “It is the thing we love. We do take everybody’s opinion seriously and make sure that we capture it regularly so that we make the right kind of progress for our local comm, not just what’s happening everywhere else in the world.”
“We welcome everyone’s opinion, in every different neighborhood and crossroad” from retirees to youth, Harrison said she wants the community health assessment to capture different opinions and perspectives.
The survey is anonymous, and Harrison said participants have the option to skip questions they don’t want to answer and complete the survey over more than one sitting. The survey will most likely be open until July 11 to make sure people have enough time to go through it.
“Health is critical for all the things we do in life. If we’re not healthy, we can’t be productive, word-hard citizens…we can’t be good family members, we can’t be safe drivers…all the things go back to our health. We’re proud to be your folks working on that every day.”
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