Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA)

Thank you for visiting Hawaii’s Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) landing page.

The CHNA report is produced by all U.S. private nonprofit hospitals every three years, as required by the IRS. It identifies the significant health needs in the community, based upon the input of key stakeholders and community members, available research and other data points. It is an extensive undertaking.

Hawaii is unique among the 50 states in that it initially conducts a statewide report on behalf of all of the participating hospitals – under the Healthcare Association of Hawaii (HAH) umbrella. The report is the culmination of input from more than 200 people, 82 key informant interviews, 18 community meetings, three expert panel webinars, four small focus groups, and an extensive literature review of both local and national data throughout 2021.

Hawaii’s private hospitals conducted a vast amount of data collection as well as collaboration – which continues well beyond the CHNA report – to produce its core statewide report (see below).

This core report is then customized by each participating hospital for the community it serves and made publicly available on their website by their respective tax year end, as appropriate and unique to each hospital. Each hospital also identifies action steps to address targeted health needs, some of which are the subject of existing efforts with community partners.

This 2021 report (which is being publicly released in March of 2022), updates the 2018 CHNA report (see below) and identifies 11 significant health needs. Five rose to the top as Hawaii’s highest priorities: