The community need index. A new tool pinpoints health care disparities in communities throughout the nation.

Catholic Healthcare West, San Francisco (CHW), has developed a national Community Need Index (CNI) in partnership with Solucient, an information products company, to help health care organizations, not-for-profits, and policymakers identify and address barriers to health care access in their communities. The CNI aggregates five socioeconomic indicators long known to contribute to health disparity--income, culture/language, education, housing status, and insurance coverage--and applies them to every zip code in the United States. Each zip code is then given a score ranging from 1.0 (low need) to 5.0 (high need). Residents of communities with the highest CNI scores were shown to be twice as likely to experience preventable hospitalization for manageable conditions--such as ear infections, pneumonia or congestive heart failure--as communities with the lowest CNI scores. The CNI provides compelling evidence for addressing socioeconomic barriers when considering health policy and local health planning. The tool highlights health care disparities between geographic regions and illustrates the acute needs of several notable geographies, including inner city and rural areas.Further, it should enable health care providers, policymakers, and others to allocate resources where they are most needed, using a standardized, quantitative tool. The CNI provides CHW with an important means to strategically allocate resources where it will be most effective in maintaining a healthy community.