ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Access to health care as well as mental and behavioral health resources are among Allentown area’s top health priorities, according to a newly published community health needs assessment.
In addition, people who make less money were more impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, the assessment found.
- St. Luke's University Health Network published a community health needs assessment
- Mental health resources and access to care are two main priorities
- The findings were shared with community leaders in hopes of connecting people to resources
The findings of St. Luke’s University Health Network’s triennial assessment were presented to a group of community members Monday. The data is collected through surveys sent out to the public and shared with others in the Allentown area as a way to create a roadmap of how to proceed.
“We had 11,523 surveys completed, which gave us a really nice pool of data to analyze [and] we included secondary sources to that,” said Dr. Rajika Reed, St. Luke's vice president of community health, who presented the findings in the network’s Sacred Heart Hospital Auditorium.
"Building those bridges to the community and ensuring that people have access, it's really vital to work with our partners on the ground."Dr. Rajika Reed, St. Luke's vice president of Community Health
“As a hospital network, we can ensure that there are resources and excellent medical care, which we do, but then building those bridges to the community and ensuring that people have access," Reed said. "It's really vital to work with our partners on the ground.”
According to the assessment, the areas of top priority are:
- Access to care
- Workforce development
- Mental and behavioral health resources
- Transportation and housing
- Chronic disease prevention
Reed said the surveys stay pretty consistent through the years, but questions were added this time around to address the coronavirus pandemic.
"We did see that people who make less money in general were more impacted by COVID,” Reed said.
“We talked a lot about disparities here and that was definitely something that came through in our data as well, but it also impacted the way we conduct surveys," she said, "A lot of times we go into soup kitchens and shelters to conduct our surveys, and that was definitely harder for us to do this round, given that a lot of those places were closed."
With many pandemic protocols lifted, various Allentown agencies were in attendance, including Allentown Police Department, school district representatives and public health officials.
"We're here to celebrate the fact that they're attacking our social determinants of health all throughout the city,” said Vicky Kistler, Allentown's director of Community and Economic Development.
"St. Luke's has done an amazing job in a short period of time here at St. Luke's Sacred Heart in making a difference in the community," Kistler said, "Also, we have a long way to go. We have a long way to go with housing instability with some of our chronic illnesses, but in partnership, we can get there."
Jose Delgado, principal of Allentown School District's Raub Middle School, spoke during the question-and-answer part of the presentation, asking how to better connect the different community entities with St. Luke’s.
"They're trying to reduce the number of patients that they get on the back end, but we feel like we can help on the front end with education and the services on the front and educating people on their diets and their mental health and their physical health."
The community health needs assessment is required of non-profit hospitals every three years to determine critical health disparities in the communities in which the hospital serves.
"We urge you to go to those assessments, review those assessments,” Reed said. “They're really your assessments, they tell you about your communities, and use those assessments. We have lots of partners who use them for the data that's already published now."
The assessment can be accessed on the St. Luke's website.
