It is our great pleasure to share the release of the 2022 Bexar and Atascosa Counties' Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). 

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Over the last 25 years, The Health Collaborative has had the privilege to work in partnership with community stakeholders, leaders and community members to ensure that this comprehensive report is produced and then shared. This report is the result of a formal community assessment that reflects over 18 months of collaborative work with agency partners and community stake- holders to establish a shared vision, select relevant indicators, and prepare a document that addresses the important drivers of health in our community. 

 

In keeping with the national movement in public health to focus more sharply on the root causes of health outcomes, the report devotes significant space to describing social, economic, and environmental conditions. The framework used to organize the report, developed by the Bay Area Regional Health Inequalities Initiative, moves fom population characteristics to living conditions, to health behaviors and risk factors, and finally to prevalence of specific diseases and causes of death. Recognizing that COVID-19 has placed additional stress on our community families on the already fragile eco-system of care, this report highlights key access issues of concern and public health threats that we need to continue to learn about and act upon for years to come.

 

As is customary, the community's voice has been integrated into the narrative of the Report. This strengthens and validates the 2022 CHNA by providing on going community commentary and reinforces the idea that we are more than just collective data points on a page but rather individuals that experience health outcomes in our daily lives. 

 

The Report reveals numerous health disparities along a number of dimensions, e.g. age, race and ethnicity, education. We invite you to take a pro-active approach by examining the disparities through an equity lens. We believe this pro-active approach will enable all of us as community partners to come to consensus on what must be done to improve the health of our community. A guiding principle for the pro-active approach through an equity lens is to remember that equity and disparity are related: in communities where resources are not equitably distributed, health disparities tend to predominate.

 

We wish to thank our Board of Directors, Steering committee, research partner CI:Now for their leadership and guidance in the development of this report. We also wish to thank our sponsors and in-kind partners whose suppott has made it possible for this repott to be available to the community. Most importantly, we especially thank you, the greater community, for providing your feedback and ongoing suppo1t to the people and places reflected in this report. 

We hope that together we can continue to make a difference in the communities we 

all serve. 

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Sincerely,

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Elizabeth Lutz

Executive Director

The Health Collaborative

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Priti Modi-Bailey, MD, MHservMgt, FAAFP
Board Chair
The Health Collaborative