Prioritizing Community Health

For nearly 70 years, Washington Health (WH) has been providing health care services to the residents of Fremont, Newark, Union City, south Hayward and unincorporated Sunol. Since 2010, the health system has conducted research to learn what community members feel are the most important health issues the community faces. The 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) was prepared in collaboration with an independent research group working with Alameda County Public Health Department, the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California and other area hospitals and health systems.

Typically, the CHNA is published every three years. Over the course of a year, data is collected through focus groups and interviews with community members and local health professionals. This information is combined with statistical data from local health departments. The results of this report allow WH to determine strategies to address the needs based on best practices and community input. Over the next two years, these strategies are implemented, then the process begins again.

“The CHNA provides an overview of the health needs of the community that we serve,” said Community Outreach Manager Kayla Gupta. “From this report, we then create our Community Health Improvement Plan, (which gets released in the fall), where we outline the strategies we plan to develop to address the health needs that we discovered.”

Washington Health works collaboratively with Alameda County, other local health care organizations, and community partners to make the report as inclusive as possible.

“It's the best of both worlds for our health system and our health care collaborators,” Gupta noted. “We get our local data, and we get the perspective of our partners from other parts of the county as well. It's a nice marriage of the two and allows us to focus on what is top of mind for our community residents.”

Top Ten

The top ten issues identified in the 2025 CHNA are:

1. Economic Security

2. Behavioral Health

3. Health Care Access & Delivery

4. Inequity & Discrimination

5. Cognitive Decline

6. Diabetes & Obesity

7. Heart/Stroke

8. Cancer

9. Maternal/Infant Health

10. Unintended Injuries

Gupta said that while the 2025 CHNA highlights several first-time needs along with repeat categories, she wasn’t surprised by the results. “In health care, there are definite trends, such as behavioral health, access to care, heart disease, stroke and cancer, which are always on our radar,” she explained. “This year, several new categories came up, including unintended injury, cognitive decline and maternal/infant health. Other needs reflect national trends, such as economic security, inequality and discrimination.

“We’ll use this information to create programs and services to address these community concerns,” Gupta continued. “It takes years to see big shifts and changes in health in a community, but Washington Health is committed to working to enhance and improve community health on multiple levels.”

Community Health Improvement

Gupta noted Washington Health programs, events, and educational presentations grow out of community need. “The information is used to drive community education events, such as our health fairs, including the Behavioral Health fair we hosted a couple of months ago and last year’s Heart Health Fair,” she explained. “The CHNA also helps us determine topics that we highlight in our ongoing Health & Wellness seminars and on-site health education with local senior centers, schools, and businesses.”

In addition, because the Washington Health community is very culturally diverse, Gupta said it is crucial to provide the options of programming each area needs. “We try to keep our community diversity in mind when we structure our programs,” she said. “We try to offer culturally relevant information and culturally aware care. We collaborate with a community advisory board and strive to capture the voices of our diverse community.”

“For example,” Gupta added, “through our 2023 CHNA, we found heart disease and stroke were high priority concerns in Union City where Asian and South Asian populations are higher. We hosted a Heart Health Fair at our Nakamura Clinic and this year, we are working with the city of Union City to sponsor the Heart Smart Walking Challenge.”

The goals of the 2025 CHNA are to provide insight into the health of the community, prioritize local health needs and identify areas for improvement. Washington Health uses the data to develop strategies to tackle critical health needs as well as improve the health and well-being of community members. A recap of Washington Health’s response to their 2023 findings can be found on the back page ad. To view the entire Community Health Needs Assessment report, visit whhs.com/CHNA.