Improving the health of a community is critical to ensuring the quality of life of its residents and fostering sustainability and future prosperity. Health is intertwined with many different facets of our lives; where we work, live, learn, and play all have an impact on our health. Understanding the current health status of a community and all of the different factors that influence health is important in order to identify priorities for program planning and coordination across partner organizations.

In 2010, the Healthier Greater New Haven Partnership was formed to help address the health needs of the Greater New Haven community, which includes the 13 towns of Bethany, Branford, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, North Branford, New Haven, North Haven, Orange, West Haven and Woodbridge. Initially named the Partnership for a Healthier New Haven, the Partnership soon expanded to include the suburban area surrounding the city of New Haven. The Healthier Greater New Haven Partnership is a coalition that includes one hospital, five actively participating departments or districts of public health, two federally qualified health centers, and numerous community and non-profit organizations serving the Greater New Haven region of Connecticut. The Partnership’s mission to improve the health and wellbeing of the Greater New Haven community.

The Healthier Greater New Haven Partnership leads a comprehensive regional triennial Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) effort, to identify the health-related needs in the region and create an implementation plan to prioritize and plan on how to address those top health needs. The current 2019-2022 priority areas for the Partnership are access to care, healthy lifestyles, and behavioral health, and access to care. Efforts to address these priority areas are carried out by regional workgroups.