Fact Sheet

Attachment A: MAPP Fact Sheet

[ FACT SHEET ]
February 2008

Mobilizing for Action through Planning
and Partnerships: A Community
Approach to Health Improvement

•

The judicial and penal systems identify potential risk factors
and health trends, such as increases in drug use, domestic
abuse, and personal injury.

•

Community groups such as churches, homeowners’
associations, and civic organizations provide insight into the
quality of health and services in a community.

MAPP

Improving Health Requires Partners
Public health is “what we as a society do collectively to assure
the conditions in which people can be healthy.”1 Health is more
than the absence of illness; rather, health is a “dynamic state of
complete physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being.”2 In
ensuring the public’s health, collective action involves a variety
of community organizations, agencies, groups, and individuals. In order to create the conditions in which people can be
healthy, communities must collectively address social, economic,
environmental, and biological factors.3 Therefore, ensuring the
public’s health is not just the responsibility of healthcare providers and public health officials. Improving the public’s health
requires the expertise of all those who live and work in the community.
No single entity provides public health services in a community,
and all entities make important contributions to the local public
health system. The following are examples of how communities
protect the public’s health:
•

Police, fire, and emergency departments prevent and
respond to emergencies that threaten personal safety.

•

Teachers, school nurses, and parents protect the health and
safety of children.

•

City planners, transportation authorities, neighborhood
associations, and businesses provide access to services that
promote and support healthy lifestyles, such as safe parks
and recreational facilities, bus routes to healthcare
providers, and vendors that sell nutritious foods.

MAPP, which stands for Mobilizing for Action through Planning
and Partnerships, provides the framework for convening the
variety of organizations, groups, and individuals that comprise
the local public health system in order to create and implement
a community health improvement plan. Through the MAPP process, communities can create and implement a well-coordinated
plan that uses resources efficiency and effectively. Resulting
community plans do not focus on one agency or public health
challenge; rather, MAPP health improvement plans provide
long-term strategies that address the multiple factors that affect
health in a community. Community involvement throughout
the creation and the implementation of a health improvement
plan results in creative solutions to public health problems.
Moreover, continuous community involvement leads to community ownership of the process. Community ownership, in turn,
increases the credibility and sustainability of health improvement efforts.

Public health belongs to the community.

What is MAPP?
MAPP is a community-wide strategic planning framework for
improving public health. MAPP helps communities prioritize
their public health issues, identify resources for addressing them,
and implement strategies relevant to their unique community
contexts.
MAPP will help communities use broad-based partnerships,
performance improvement, and strategic planning in public
health practice. This approach leads to the following:
•

measurable improvements in the community’s health and
quality of life;

•

increased visibility of public health within the community;

•

community advocates for public health and the local public
health system;

•

ability to anticipate and manage change effectively; and

•

stronger public health infrastructure, partnerships, and
leadership.

Benefits for System Partners
Participation in a MAPP process results in the following benefits
for community partners:

[2]

•

increased recognition within the community and among
peers;

•

access to accurate and current data—partners comment
that access to data collected through a MAPP process is the
number one benefit of participation;

•

improved focus on priorities;

•

reduction in the duplication of services within a community;

•

increased collaboration on projects and activities; and

•

increase in financial resources—data have been used to
acquire grant and government funding.

Background
From 1997 through 2001, the National Association of County
and City Health Officials (NACCHO), in collaboration with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed
MAPP. Prior to MAPP’s inception, public health practitioners did
not have structured guidance on creating and implementing
community-based strategic plans.4 In response, NACCHO and
CDC created a process based on substantive input from public
health practitioners and public health research and theory. As
a result, MAPP is a process that is both theoretically sound and
relevant to public health practice.5

Fact Sheet: Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships: A Community Approach to Health Improvement

MAPP’s Process
The MAPP process has six phases. The figure below shows the
six phases in a linear fashion down the middle of the graphic.
Four arrows surround the linear process to illustrate that the four
MAPP assessments inform the entire MAPP process.

Join one of the most important coalitions
your community has ever had.

•

The Community Themes and Strengths Assessment
provides qualitative information on how communities perceive their health and quality of life concerns as well as their
knowledge of community resources and assets.

•

The Local Public Health System Assessment is completed
using the local instrument of the National Public Health
Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP). The NPHPSP
instrument measures how well public health system
partners collaborate to provide public health services based
on a nationally recognized set of performance standards.

•

The Community Health Status Assessment provides quantitative data on a broad array of health indicators, including
quality of life, behavioral risk factors, and other measures
that reflect a broad definition of health.

•

The Forces of Change Assessment provides an analysis of
the positive and negative external forces that impact the
promotion and protection of the public’s health.

Phase 4:
Identify Strategic Issues uses the information gathered from
the four assessments to determine the strategic issues a community must address in order to reach its vision.

Phase 1:
Organize for Success and Partnership Development are part
of the planning phase. This phase identifies who should be
involved in the process and how the partnership will approach
and organize the process.

Phase 5:

Phase 2:

The Formulate Goals and Strategies phase involves specifying
goals for each of the strategic issues identified in the previous
phase. Many communities create a community health improvement plan at the end of this phase.

The Visioning phase is a collaborative and creative approach
that leads to a shared community vision and common values.

Phase 6:

Phase 3:

The Action Cycle includes planning, implementation, and
evaluation of a community’s strategic plan.

The Four Assessments inform the entire MAPP process. The
assessment phase provides a comprehensive picture of a community in its current state using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The use of four different assessments is a unique
feature of MAPP. Most planning processes look only at quantitative statistics and anecdotal data. MAPP provides tools to help
communities analyze health issues through multiple lenses.

Fact Sheet: Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships: A Community Approach to Health Improvement [ 3 ]

[ FACT SHEET ]
February 2008

References
1

Institute of Medicine Committee for the Study of the Future
of Public Health. (1998). The future of public health. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

2

World Health Organization. (1998). Resolution EB101.R2.
Geneva.

3

Institute of Medicine Committee on Using Performance
Monitoring to Improve Community Health. (1997). Improving health in the community: a role for performance monitoring. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

4

Lenihan, P. (2005). MAPP and the evolution of planning in
public health practice. Journal of Public Health Management
and Practice, 11, 381.

5

Corso, L., Wiesner, P., & Lenihan, P. (2005). MAPP in action:
developing the MAPP community health improvement tool.
Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 11, 387.

For more information, Please contact:
Heidi Deutsch, MA, MSDM
MAPP Program Manager
National Association of County & City Health Officials
P (202) 783 5550, Ext. 252
F (202) 783 1583
[email protected]
www.naccho.org/MAPP
This publication was made possible by the support of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

NACCHO is the national organization representing local health departments.
NACCHO supports efforts that protect and improve the health of all people
and all communities by promoting national policy, developing resources and
programs, seeking health equity, and supporting effective local public health
practice and systems.

1100 17th St, NW, 2nd Floor

www.naccho.org

Washington, DC 20036

P (202) 783 5550 F (202) 783 1583