Community Assessment
Community Assessment
Patron information requests related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are closely related to the broader reference area of health information services. Understanding your community’s basic health infrastructure and local health and demographic figures is useful in a number of ways. It can help your library understand potential resources for ACA marketplace or other health information referral or partnership. It can also help your library anticipate potential interests and priorities of local community health partners or funders. And most importantly, it can provide context for some of the health information challenges or needs that may be occurring regularly in your community.
Please note: Information on community health resources shared in this section is intended to support a general understanding of community health needs as context for Affordable Care Act marketplace information services. Additional resources for library staff supporting community health needs more broadly are available at the Health Happens in Libraries resource page.