MAP-IT: A Model for Implementing Healthy People 2020

1. MAP-IT: A Model for Implementing Healthy People 2020

2. What is MAP-IT? MAP-IT is a framework for planning and evaluating public health interventions in a community. MAP-IT has five steps: Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about the health of your community into a coalition. Assess the areas of greatest need in your community, and the strengths and resources that you can tap into to address those areas. Plan your approach: start with a vision of where you want to be as a community; add strategies and action steps to help achieve that vision. Implement your plan using concrete action steps that can be monitored and will make a difference. Track your progress over time.

3. Why use MAP-IT? • It involves all stakeholders, making for a widely-supported and community-owned effort • It assesses assets as well as needs, and looks for ways to use them • Assessment means that the effort will start from the reality of the community, rather than from some preconceived idea of what’s necessary or what resources are available • It produces a comprehensive and specific plan, with reasonable time lines, assigned responsibility, clear objectives, and well-defined action steps related to an overall strategy • It incorporates evaluation from the beginning, allowing adjustment when necessary

4. How do you use MAP-IT? 1. Mobilize • Consider what you want coalition partners to do and how the coalition might be organized • Brainstorm potential partners • Recruit coalition members • Create a vision for the coalition

5. How do you use MAP-IT? (cont.) 2. Assess • Collect locally available data about resources and needs • Collect information from public and archival sources • Determine what issues are most important to community residents and key stakeholders • Identify community assets, including people, skills, capacity and capacity building, space, organizations and institutions, knowledge, funds, etc. • Based on data and community priorities, prioritize needs by consensus • Establish baseline data

6. How do you use MAP-IT? (cont.) 3. Plan • Choose the issue(s) the initiative will work on • Set clear objectives For each objective, develop an action plan that includes: • A strategy and tactics • A time line with reasonable time targets for each phase of the strategy • The responsible parties and their roles and tasks • Indicators and/or other measures of progress

7. How do you use MAP-IT? (cont.) 4. Implement • Identify an individual or organization to serve as the coordinating point for the implementation of the initiative • Make sure that everyone involved knows what’s going on and what everyone else is doing • Use the media and other channels to inform the community about the work of the initiative

8. How do you use MAP-IT? (cont.) 5. Track • Start your evaluation and monitoring at the very beginning of your initiative, if possible • Set up a system for gathering data Consider: • Data Quality • Limitations of self-reported data • Data validity and reliability • Data availability • Organize and analyze data on a regular basis, so that you can make appropriate adjustments in your work as time goes on • Share progress and successes with the community

9. MAP-IT: Additional Resources • Healthy People 2020,http://healthypeople.gov/ - Healthy People is a collaboration between several different organizations with the mission of setting objectives for the health of the nation. They provide the MAP-IT framework for Implementation, as well as many other useful pages, including: • Organizing a Coalition: http://healthypeople.gov/2020/implementing/QuestionsToConsider.pdf - Provides a list of important questions to consider before organizing a coalition, in a printable format that allows you to fill out answers to the questions and/or distribute them to a planning group. • Potential Partners:http://healthypeople.gov/2020/implementing/BrainstormPotenial.pdf A checklist that will help you think of all possibilities for potential partners for your effort. • Prioritizing Issues:http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/implementing/PrioritizingIssues.pdf An exercise that will assist you in determining which issues it is most important for your effort to undertake. • Community Assets: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/implementing/BrainstormCommunity.pdf A checklist to assist you in determining community assets that are available. • Measuring Progress: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/implementing/MeasuringProgress.pdf Helpful formulas for quantitatively measuring your progress.