Commissioners accept 2025 Burke County Community Health Assessment; housing, substance use and mental health top priorities

Burke County’s public health educator, Miranda Smith, presented the county’s 2025 Community Health Assessment (CHA) on Nov. 17 and the Board of Commissioners voted to accept the report.

Smith said primary data collection ran from April to June 2024 and included 492 resident survey responses, focus groups (cultural diversity, people experiencing homelessness, and faith-based groups) and secondary sources such as the U.S. Census and state data portals. Smith said Burke County had the third-highest survey response count among Western North Carolina counties, after Buncombe and Henderson.

The CHA identifies three top priorities: affordable housing and homelessness (the point-in-time count indicated 258 individuals experiencing homelessness and 73 students without stable housing), substance use disorder (55.2% of survey respondents reported their lives were negatively affected by substance use), and mental health (17% of respondents reported 7+ poor mental health days in a month; residents averaged 5.5 poor mental-health days per month). Smith noted increases in rent/mortgage worry: 33.7% of respondents reported worrying about paying rent or mortgage, up from 18% in 2021.

Next steps include development of a 2026 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and a 2027 State of County Health report to guide initiatives, grants and partnership work. Commissioners accepted the CHA and thanked Smith for the work.

Smith encouraged stakeholders to consult the full published CHA document for complete data and methodology details.