Florence County Health Department is a small, rural county in northern Wisconsin that was reaccredited through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) in 2023. Due to limited financial resources, the county does not have an epidemiologist or data expert but is tasked with creating a community health assessment and improvement plan (CHA/CHIP) that meets both PHAB and Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) 140 requirements.
The Florence County team took a new approach of working with the DHS Division of Public Health (DPH) to create internal capacity by dividing workloads related to programming while aligning with statewide priorities. Using County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) data, the department created its own CHA/CHIP through technical support from DPH, and based on version 2.0 of PHAB.
In the November Spotlight, the Florence County team shared their experiences, lessons learned, and barriers encountered during the process.