Our Capabilities
- Support community engagement and integration for health promotion and readiness efforts across clinical and community environments.
- Create sustainable cross-sector partnerships and bi-directional structured systems that allow community health promotion and the clinical environment to support one another.
- Support the development and implementation of collaborative community health improvement (CHI) processes across the DOW.
The overall end goal remains – to support readiness and health of the force. This can be achieved most efficiently with a collaborative, integrated, and sustainable approach.
Our Framework
CHI processes support the broader goals and objectives of the DOW operational objectives as outlined in DOD Instruction 1010.10,
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the TFF Framework as delineated in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3405.01. Coalitions, collaboratives, and associated working groups provide strategic platforms to ensure effective health, readiness and resilience-related integration across the military enterprise.
Defense Health Agency Public Health (DHA PH) created the Military Community Health Assessment and Improvement, or mCHAI, process and corresponding mCHAI Toolbox
(CAC required) by adapting a nationally recognized CHI framework, Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) 2.0 from the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The mCHAI is a community-driven, strategic health improvement planning process for use in military environments.
The
Guide for Planning and Implementing Collaborative Community Health Improvement Processes in the Military Environment supports the development and implementation of collaborative CHI processes across the DOW, which include building a coalition of committed partners, performing community assessments, and creating an action plan to integrate and synchronize multiple efforts, with the overarching goal of improving health, readiness, and resilience across the Force. The Guide incorporates the
mCHAI Toolbox (CAC required) with resources, modifiable tools, and examples to support CHI processes in military settings. The Guide provides a strategic approach to CHI in support of military communities.
The DOW's prevention strategy is the blueprint for a Department-wide approach to primary prevention of harmful behaviors and now expands to include TFF, seeking to achieve maximum readiness of the military community, to the extent practicable. The strategy reaffirms the DOW's commitment to preventing harmful behaviors, acknowledges the continued need for Integrated Primary Prevention (IPP), and envisions embedding the established IPP approach within the Department's new Next Generation TFF Framework.
Available for download:
mCHAI E-Flyer
For more information please contact dha-ph.mchai@health.mil.
Our Activities
CHP provides
consultative support for the execution of a public health framework across the DOW:
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Health Promotion Leadership Forum (HPLF): Quarterly synchronization meeting for command and installation health promotion and integrated prevention leadership and staff. DOW employees can visit the
HPLF website (CAC required) to learn more and access Forum updates, session recordings, slides and other resources.
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Ad-hoc Consultative Support: CHP provides ad-hoc consultative support for community health assessment and improvement and public health planning.
The
mCHAI Toolbox (CAC required) utilizes a strategic approach to public health planning that enables military communities to build partnerships, identify the most pressing health-related priorities, develop or coordinate effective strategies and achieve measurable improvements in health, readiness and resilience. The Toolbox—
- Provides planning and implementation guidance for development of community health improvement plans (CHIPs) in military environments.
- Explains the processes necessary for establishing effective community coalitions, collaboratives, and working groups.
- Provides a standardized Community Strengths and Themes Assessment (CSTA) enabling all military locations to capture community perceptions regarding quality of life and health and wellness among key physical, behavioral, family, spiritual and social risk areas within the military environment.
- Supports Public Health Accreditation.
Available for download:
mCHAI Flyer
Community Strengths and Themes Assessment (CSTA)
Current Department of Defense Instructions (DoDI) direct completion of comprehensive assessments of military communities for health risk factors and needs. A comprehensive CSTA is supported by DoDI 1010.10,
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; DoDI 6400.11,
DoD Integrated Primary Prevention Policy for Prevention Workforce and Leaders; and service-specific regulations (e.g., Army Regulation (AR) 600-63, AR 40-5, AR 608-1). For military locations seeking Public Health Accreditation, the CSTA helps eligible installation departments of public health meet the national public health accreditation standards for community health assessment as delineated by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB).
Recent CSTA publications:
Workforce Wellness Champion Toolkit (WWCT) Enables Healthy Workplaces
Military healthcare and public health professionals face unique challenges that can impact their well-being and health. To ensure a Ready Medical Force, it's crucial to address workforce wellness to fulfill the DHA mission. Everyone can help advance workforce wellness, but having champions lead the way can be especially beneficial. The Toolkit is designed to empower personnel working in military medical treatment facilities and other military settings to develop and implement comprehensive employee wellness programs. The WWCT toolkit (CAC required) offers a step-by-step guide, tools and resources to support the creation and sustainment of effective wellness initiatives at all levels within DHA organizations.
The toolkit is designed to be user-friendly and emphasizes a holistic approach to wellness by addressing physical, mental and social well-being, and promoting a culture of workforce health and resilience. It aims to support military organizations in assessing their current wellness needs, identifying relevant evidence-based programs, and accessing practical resources to support implementation. The toolkit contains needs assessment tools, a user workbook, program planning strategies, evaluation frameworks, and a searchable database of wellness programs and services tailored to the military environment. The toolkit aims to reduce the burden on individual facilities, promote consistent wellness standards across military organizations, and ultimately enhance the health, productivity and retention of our valuable workforce.
Training
JKO VCLASS DHA Public Health: Essentials of Health Promotion Course
DHA Public Health: Essentials of Health Promotion is a health promotion course designed to equip learners with foundational knowledge and skills to improve the health and well-being of warfighters and military communities. Students will learn evidence-informed health promotion practices and develop competencies in areas of practice such as community health assessment, program planning, evaluation, and health communication. The course contains six modules, each being a self-paced, on-demand, online learning activity housed on
JKO Virtual Classroom (VCLASS). 3.0 CE/CMEs are available for successfully completing the course.
Learn more at
DHA Public Health: Essentials of Health Promotion Course Course Details. Course information is also available in
PPTX and
PDF formats.
Publications
Health, Well-being, and Readiness Across the Services: A Review of the Current Literature is a comprehensive literature review that synthesized more than 900 peer-reviewed studies and systematic reviews examining the association of health-related behaviors, practices, and beliefs with military-relevant outcomes. The review provides empirical evidence of the need for a holistic prevention approach to ensure Force readiness and lethality and identifies key gaps in current scientific literature.
Ongoing military research, health promotion, and primary prevention efforts may use this review to assess program alignment with holistic health frameworks and to identify research needs relevant to force protection, readiness, and lethality.
