The challenge of developing community profiles for use in community health assessment: lessons from Michigan's experience.

In Michigan, a number of steps have been undertaken to revitalize a key public health function--community health assessment. This article reports on the activities of these initiatives, focusing on the beginning stage of the community health assessment process--the development of community health profiles. The findings and lessons learned from Michigan's experience, although state specific, appear to have broad applicability to the entire local public health community. It is hoped their publication will stimulate replication of this process among this community in other states.