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Walworth County public health outlines 2025 Community Health Assessment and CHIP, highlights substance-use outreach
Summary
Public health staff reported progress on the 2022'2025 Community Health Improvement Plan, described planning for a joint 2025 Community Health Assessment with local hospital partners, and summarized a recent substance-use data walk that drew 23 participants and highlighted opioid deaths averaging about 12'15 per year.
Walworth County public health staff on Jan. 22, 2025, updated the Health and Human Services board on the county's 2022'2025 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and sketched plans for the 2025 Community Health Assessment (CHA). Staff also reported results of a substance-use data walk and discussed harm-reduction vending machines as one possible intervention.
Presenters: Mallory Betke, community health supervisor, and Erin Winden, public health specialist, led the briefing. Betke described a "bridal mapping" exercise the steering committee used to document unanticipated effects and durable community connections arising from the CHIP. "We really took those answers and we started that bridal map is what we call it," Betke said, summarizing how the committee identified partnerships, policy or structural changes and who benefits from the CHIP.
2025 CHA plan: Staff said the county is partnering with Aurora and Mercy health systems to complete a coordinated community health needs assessment in 2025, aligning survey and focus-group timelines so health systems and public health do not survey the community in separate years. The CHA will include evaluation of the current CHIP, primary data collection (surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews) and secondary data analysis; staff aim to complete analysis and a final report by first quarter 2026.
Substance-use data walk: Public health reported that 23 participants attended a recent data-walk event that included data displays and small-group discussion. Staff described activities designed to surface community priorities and barriers; one activity asked participants to create symbolic "keys" reflecting ways to move forward, and staff plan to take the campaign out into the wider community in 2025.
Harm-reduction vending machines: A board member asked for clarification about a gallery-walk suggestion for a "climate-controlled harm reduction vending machine." Staff and board members noted other communities (Milwaukee County) have used vending machines that dispense items such as naloxone (Narcan), fentanyl test strips, drug-disposal kits, condoms, CPR face shields and gun locks. "The ones I saw implemented were in Milwaukee County," a board member said, describing locations such as libraries, community centers and police departments where vending machines have been placed.
Opioid and overdose numbers: When asked about local overdose counts, public health staff said opioid-related fatalities in recent years have been in the mid-teens annually. "We did have somewhere in the neighborhood of 15," a staff member said; another participant clarified those were deaths and specifically opioid-related. Staff noted nonfatal overdoses and alcohol-related poisonings are more common and that follow-up care for nonfatal overdoses is an area the county is working to track with health-care partners.
Why it matters: The CHA/CHIP cycle guides countywide public-health priorities and partnerships; the planned collaboration with health-care systems aims to align resources and reduce duplication of survey work. The data-walk findings and discussions about harm reduction will inform public-facing outreach and opioid mitigation strategies.
Ending: Staff asked the board for continued support in promoting survey participation and steering-committee outreach; the county will begin primary data collection in spring/summer 2025 and analyze results toward a 2026 CHIP update.
