The Maine Shared Community Health Needs Assessment (Maine Shared CHNA) is a collaboration between Central Maine Healthcare (CMHC), Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC), MaineGeneral Health (MGH), MaineHealth (MH), and Northern Light Health (NLH). The vision of the Maine Shared CHNA is to turn health data into action so that Maine will become the healthiest state in the U.S. Click here to read the 2022 Waldo County MSCHNA Report.

The mission of the Maine Shared CHNA is to:
• Create Shared CHNA Reports,
• Engage and activate communities, and
• Support data-driven health improvements for Maine people.

This is the fourth Maine Shared CHNA and the third conducted on a triennial basis. The Collaboration began with the One Maine initiative published in 2010. The project was renamed to the Shared Health Needs Assessment and Planning Process in 2015 which informed the 2016 final reports, and renamed to the Maine Shared CHNA in 2018, which informed the 2019 final reports. The 2021 community engagement cycle has informed the 2022 final reports.

New this cycle is an expanded effort to reach those who may experience systemic disadvantages and therefore experience a greater rate of health disparities. Two types of outreach were piloted in this effort. One effort included nine community sponsored events hosted by organizations representing the following communities: Black or African Americans; people who are deaf or hard of hearing; people with a mental health diagnosis; people with a disability; people who define themselves or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and/or questioning (LGBTQ+); people with low income; older adults; people who are homeless or formerly homeless; and youth. In addition to these events, 1,000 oral surveys were conducted in collaboration with eight ethnic-based community organizations’ community health workers to better reach Maine’s immigrant population. A complete description of how these efforts were deployed, and a listing of those who provided input, is provided in the Methodology section on page 18.

All of the County, District, and State reports and additional information and data can be found on our web page: www.mainechna.org.