As a nonprofit health care provider, Kaiser Permanente Northwest is dedicated to caring for the health needs of our communities, and addressing the social and environmental factors that create barriers to health.

In order to better understand the needs of each community we serve and to help strategically allocate resources, we regularly conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment. This process not only informs our community investments, helping us make a long-term, sustainable impact, but it also allows us to strengthen relationships with partner organizations and holds us accountable to our mission as we work together to improve community health.

Our process

A CHNA is conducted every 3 years to inform our community investments and meet federal regulatory obligations. The CHNA process provides a rigorous method for identifying high-priority health needs in our communities, and drives the development of strategies to address those needs.

During the CHNA process, information is collected using a variety of methods — public data and analytical mapping tools, online surveys, and listening sessions — to identify a list of community health needs. Needs are then prioritized by those that are most pressing and that Kaiser Permanente Northwest is best equipped to address.

The Kaiser Permanente Community Health Needs Assessment page provides further information about our methods, findings, planned response, and implementation strategy to the prioritized community health needs.

Kaiser Permanente Northwest’s priority health needs

The Kaiser Permanente Northwest 2022 CHNA process illuminated 5 high-priority health needs that are most critical to the health and well-being of the communities we serve. These health needs will serve as the foundation for our community health efforts through 2025:

1. Housing — Affordable, safe, and stable housing; preventing homelessness; strengthening homeless systems of care; and improving care coordination
2. Access to health care — High-quality, affordable, holistic, trauma-informed, and culturally relevant medical and dental care that advances racial and health equity
3. Mental and behavioral health — Mental health, addiction, and behavioral health care available for all, safe and supportive learning environments in schools, preventing and mitigating intergenerational trauma, and growing the workforce of culturally responsive mental health clinicians
4. Economic opportunity, and income and employment — Reducing structural barriers and improving opportunities for inclusive economic mobility through financial literacy, workforce development, and growing diverse small businesses
5. Food security — Increasing purchasing power by supporting programs that extend food dollars (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC; and others); supporting meal distribution to people in underserved communities; and championing policy, research, and advocacy efforts that impact community food security strategies

Healthy Columbia Willamette Collaborative

Kaiser Permanente Northwest’s CHNA process is conducted in association with the Healthy Columbia Willamette Collaborative, a public-private partnership comprised of 15 hospitals, 4 local public health departments, and 2 coordinated care organizations in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties in Oregon, and Clark County in Washington. Many thanks to the collaborative and the local community organizations that provide invaluable input for the CHNA.