Community Benefits | Community Health Needs Assessment

Community Definition

National Jewish Health sees patients from around the nation and the world. Many patients come from Denver and the surrounding counties. For the purposes of this assessment, we have defined our community as Denver County and four contiguous counties — Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson and Douglas counties — in which a majority of our local patients live. As a tertiary care hospital focused on respiratory health, we have further defined our community as those who will benefit from diagnosis, treatment and prevention of respiratory disease.

Community Health

National Jewish Health scrutinized published health data, held community input sessions, surveyed community health providers and consulted with our own faculty, who have extensive contacts and experience with the community, to understand the outstanding health needs of residents in our community.

Summary of Identified Health Needs

Our research identified community health needs, which we group into two categories: Respiratory Health and Social and Behavioral Health.

• Respiratory Health. Asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are the two most common and burdensome respiratory diseases in our community. COVID-19 and the rise of people suffering from what is referred to as long COVID have risen to the top in terms of need both in the past two years and for the immediate future.

• Social and Behavioral Health. Tobacco use, air pollution, education for providers and patients, access to specialty care and cost of medications and care continue to be the most significant social and behavioral health needs in our community. 

Hospital Transformation Program

The Hospital Transformation Program (HTP) is a value-based program for hospitals caring for Medicaid clients. Learn More and download the draft application and intervention proposal.

Community Health Needs Assessment

Selected Areas of Focus

View Community Health Needs Assessment (PDF)

Based on a combination of community need and National Jewish Health capabilities, the following areas will be the primary focus of additional efforts to address community health needs. Specific strategies and initiatives to address these areas of focus will be included in the Implementation Strategy Report, which will be available in November 2022.

Pediatric Asthma. Rates of asthma and especially rates of emergency room visits and hospitalizations among children living in the National Jewish Health community, along with universal mention of asthma among pediatric community health providers, suggests this is a large unmet community health need.

Education. Providers and patients could benefit significantly from better understanding about respiratory health and ways to protect it, from educating physicians about handling difficult respiratory cases to educating patients about managing their disease and reducing exposure to respiratory irritants.

Access to Specialty Care, including ongoing focus on COVID-19 health needs. The high rates of emergency care and hospitalizations for asthma and COPD, high levels of air pollution, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic indicate that respiratory patients in our community continue to need better access to the knowledge and expertise of National Jewish Health.

**Board approval for the 2022 National Jewish Health CHNA was June 29, 2022.

Download the 2022 Report Here (PDF)

Download the 2019 Report Here (PDF)