Community Health Needs Assessment Will Call on Residents for Input

Findings will help identify population health concerns in Santa Barbara County

Cottage Health and Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, along with several other community organizations, are partnering to improve the well-being of Santa Barbara County residents. To better understand the needs and strengths of the entire community, and the many diverse groups within it, the collaborative is asking residents to participate in a Community Health Needs Assessment.  

The assessment will initially include two parts—a county-wide Community Health Needs Assessment and the Westside Needs Assessment.  The county-wide survey will include 2,000 randomly selected households across the county. Community members will receive an invitation to participate in the survey through a letter in the mail, text message, or phone call. Invitations to take the county-wide survey will be coming through September from experts at the Evaluation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. For those selected to participate, the survey can be completed online or by phone. 

The Westside Needs Assessment is being conducted in partnership with University of California, Santa Barbara and will include 160 randomly selected households on the Westside of the City of Santa Barbara. Trained volunteers will knock on doors of selected households and invite residents to participate in the survey in-person. Data collection will take place through August.

Survey participants will receive a $5 gift card. Survey collectors will be identified as Santa Barbara County Public Health Department and Cottage Health. All responses will be confidential and will not be connected to names, addresses or phone numbers. No personal financial information will be collected for this needs assessment. 

The Community Health Needs Assessment collaborative includes the following partners:

• Community Health Care Centers of the Central Coast
• Cottage Health
• Dignity Health 
• Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization 
• Lompoc Valley Medical Center
• Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) 
• Planned Parenthood California Central Coast 
• Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness
• Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
• Santa Barbara Foundation
• Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics
• Tribal Health 
• University of California, Santa Barbara

Findings will help community partners recognize the scope of population health concerns. Results will be available by the end of the year at cottagehealth.org.  

About Cottage Health  cottagehealth.org

The not-for-profit Cottage Health is the leader in providing advanced medical care to the Central Coast region. Specialties include the Cottage Children’s Medical Center, Level 1 Trauma Center, Neuroscience Institute, Heart & Vascular Center, Center for Orthopedics, and Rehabilitation Hospital. The Cottage Health medical staff is comprised of more than 700 physicians, many with subspecialties typically found only at university medical centers. Last year, the Cottage Health hospitals in Goleta, Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley provided inpatient care for 21,000 people, treated 80,000 patients through their 24-hour emergency departments and helped deliver 2,100 newborns.  

About Santa Barbara County Public Health Department sbcphd.org

The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department works to improve the health of communities countywide by preventing disease, promoting wellness and health equity, while ensuring access to needed health care, and maintaining a safe and healthy environment.