Community Health Improvement Plan
2025-2027
The Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) is a three-year action plan to improve the health of Rock County. Using Rock County 2024 Community Health Assessment (CHA) data, six themes were presented as potential priority areas for the next CHIP cycle. The community voted for the top two themes, housing and mental health, to become the priority areas of the 2025-2027 CHIP.
Priority Areas Overview
Housing
Access to quality and stable housing can influence one’s health. Rock County community members discussed challenges associated with finding quality housing that is affordable, especially among rental properties. Increasing the availability of affordable, quality homes and coordinating resources for those faced with homelessness were the top priorities related to the neighborhood and built environment from the 2024 CHA.
Mental Health
Mental health is essential to one’s overall health. Many factors contribute to mental health wellness and can affect how one is able to cope with stress, relate to others, and make choices. Community members in Rock County continue to face challenges accessing needed mental health services. In the 2024 CHA, barriers were often related to appointment availability, access to mental healthcare services, and affordability of care.
CHIP Process
To develop the CHIP, the Health Equity Alliance of Rock County (HEAR) utilizes a collaborative framework called Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP 2.0). This cycle, HEAR also piloted a public deliberation process which allows the community to engage in conversations to learn and make decisions together. The steps HEAR engaged in to develop the CHIP are outlined below.
Identify CHIP Priority Areas
Goal: Collectively identify two priority areas for the 2025-2027 Rock County CHIP using the 2024 CHA data findings and community input.
Six themes emerged from the 2024 CHA data: Dental health services, economic well-being, healthcare services, housing, mental health, and transportation. Topic guides were created for each theme to review CHA data, who is most impacted, and the influences of health outcomes.
HEAR hosted a data share and round table event for the community to discuss the data, current efforts, and potential strategies to address the themes.
The community was asked to vote for the top two themes to become the priority areas for the 2025-2027 CHIP. From a survey vote, housing and mental health were identified as the priority areas.
Tool used to analyze influences. Adapted from Human Impact Partners and MAPP.
Analyze Influences of Each Priority Area
Goal: Assess how each priority area is influenced by people’s thoughts, beliefs, and relationships, organizations, systems, and policies.
During the September HEAR meeting, HEAR members identified decision-makers, influencers, and opposing narratives that can have an impact on housing and mental health.
This analysis was used to inform the proposed strategies and engage partners in the CHIP deliberative conversations.
Engage Community in Goal Setting
Goal: Develop potential approaches and actions for each priority for the community to reflect on and discuss support for.
The steering team developed three approaches and potential action steps for each priority area. The actions were created from research on evidence-based practices, community feedback, and key partner meetings.
HEAR hosted two deliberative conversations per priority area to engage the community in discussion around the potential approaches and action steps. The conversations concluded with the groups determining approaches and actions with the most support to be incorporated into the 2025-2027 CHIP.
Develop and Implement Action Plans
Goal: Create plans to reflect the selected approaches and actions that details the milestones and responsibilities to achieve goals.
After goals were determined from the deliberative conversations, HEAR members partnered with community partners and members to develop action plans that aimed to reach shared goals.
HEAR’s community event to learn about the CHA data and discuss six themes.
August 8, 2024
One of two housing deliberative conversations held with members of the Homeless Intervention Task Force of Rock and Walworth Counties.
October 23, 2024
Monitor and Evaluate the CHIP
Goal: Utilize ongoing evaluation methods to monitor the progress of the CHIP and modify as needed.
Process and outcome measures will be identified and monitored to identify changes related to CHIP activities.
CHIP tracking dashboards will be published under each priority area to show progress of each activity.
Tools from the plan-do-study-act cycle are used to plan and manage CHIP work. The “plan” and “do” stages reflect action plan development and implementation. “Study” and “act” stages reflect the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of CHIP activities. View the the CHIP priority area pages: