Set Goals and Priorities for Your Rural Community Health Program

Program planners can use community health needs assessment results and input from community members and partners to establish priorities likely to have the greatest impact. Multiple methods can help identify program goals. Rural communities can consider engaging an outside facilitator for technical assistance with the goal-setting process, such as a community healthcare provider, an individual from the public health department, or a researcher who partners with community members.

Rural communities can also use formal prioritization strategies, including:

• Nominal Group Technique: A facilitated approach that uses a series of votes to narrow down priorities. Each member of the group, such as a community advisory board, will select their top priorities. Based on the responses, the issues with the most votes are the ones that are selected as major priorities.
• Hanlon Method/ Basic Priority Rating System: Prioritizes issues by assigning a score (1-10) in each of the following categories: magnitude (size), importance (urgency, severity, consequence), and potential intervention success.

Less formal methods for prioritization include roundtable discussions, unstructured focus groups, general forums, and community meetings/forums.