Health and social service needs of older adults: Implementing a community-based needs assessment

How effective is the delivery of health and social services to the older adult? A community-wide needs assessment was conducted in northeast Florida to determine gaps and duplication in health and social services delivery networks for older adults, and to identify major areas of need.This article describes the process of working with a community-based organization to develop and conduct an assessment using a mixed methods approach. The resulting study shows that community needs assessments based on both survey data and feedback solicited from individual interviews and a modified focus group approach provides a comprehensive perspective which is needed to effectively evaluate community needs.The study results presented a picture of a community with health and social services resources that were not consistently networked and a senior community whose primary need was information on how to locate and access needed services. The results were included in a successful application for a community planning grant and provided ongoing direction for implementation of interventions to address identified needs.