Submit Your Community Health Priorities and Improvement Plans to MDH

Community health boards can now submit community health priorities and community health improvement plans to MDH at any time, on your time frame.

On this page
Submission process
What happens after submission? 
What changed and why?
Help and questions

Community health boards no longer need to wait for a specific point in time to submit health priorities and community health improvement plans to MDH. The requirement to submit these at least every five years still exists, but the REDCap project will always be open, providing the flexibility to submit whenever you are ready.

What to submit

• Community health priorities determined through a community health assessment process. Submitting health priorities is a proxy for submitting the community health assessment. All community health boards must submit their community’s health priorities.
• Community health improvement plans developed in partnership with your community.  For accredited agencies, it is optional to submit community health improvement plans. Accredited agencies will need to indicate their accreditation/re-accreditation date on the REDCap form.

When to submit 

• At any time, but at least every five years to meet statutory requirements (Minn. Stat. § 145A.04). 
• The deadline for the community health board’s next submission is indicated at the top the REDCap form.   

No action is needed at this time unless the community health board has new health priorities and has developed a new or significantly revised their community health improvement plan.

How to submit

1. Log into REDCap.  If you (or the staff who will be submitting) do not currently have access to REDCap, please contact the MDH Center for Public Health Practice at health.ophp@state.mn.us.
2. Open the project titled Health Priorities and CHIP 5 Year Submission. The first time you submit using this new process should go under “Health Priorities and CHIP submission 1." Submission 2 and 3 will be used for future submissions.
3. Complete according to the instructions at the top of the form. If you have questions, please contact your public health system consultant. 

Staff from the MDH Center for Public Health Practice will review the community health improvement plan and provide feedback to the community health board based on Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) standards and measures (version 2022). Center for Public Health Practice staff will strive to provide feedback within three months of submission.

MDH will annually update What are community health boards working on right now? with any new health priorities submitted by community health boards during the year.  

Shift to rolling submission: Recognizing that community health boards are constantly all at different stages in the process, the decision was made to move to submission on a rolling basis, based on whenever the community has developed or substantially revised their community health assessment and community health improvement plan.  Previously, MDH has asked community health boards to submit their community health priorities and community health improvement plan to MDH at a single point in time every five years. This change provides flexibility for community health boards while still meeting state statute for submitting every five years.

One-stop submission: Community health boards will submit health priorities and community health improvement plans in the same location. Prior to this, community health boards emailed plans and submitted priorities online. This new process is intended to reduce steps and improve efficiency.

• Join the CHA/CHIP Community of Practice: Join the MDH CHA-CHIP Community of Practice to build capacity around conducting, developing, and implementing a community health assessment and community health improvement plan.
• Contact your public health nurse consultant.