Every three years, the health department and community partners survey Essex County residents to identify health challenges. These results form a Community Health Assessment that directs their joint efforts to improve local health.
2025 marked a “Cycle Year” for our county. A cycle year is a pivotal period dedicated to intensive data collection, community listening, and strategic resetting. It is the time when we transition from our previous goals to a fresh, five-year vision based on current needs.
As of December 31, 2025, the 2025 Community Health Assessment (CHA) and the 2026–2030 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) are officially complete.
This wasn’t a project designed in a vacuum—it was powered by you. To the Essex County residents who shared your stories and filled out our surveys: thank you. Your lived experience is the foundation of this plan.
Below is the 2025 Community Health Survey Summary that 562 residents participated in.
Community Health Assessment, 2025
Click/tap through key pages of the report or download the full version below.
💡Tip – Click “controls” on the navigator bar below to magnify or search within the document.
Community Health Assessment, 2025
Here are 3 great resources to get you started:
Summary of Tobacco Patterns, Prevention, and Policy in Essex County, NY 2024
Healthy ADK is a project of the North Country’s Population Health Improvement Program, maintained by Adirondack Health Institute in collaboration with local agencies. Data sets include health, economy, education, environment, government, public safety, social environment & transportation.
The NYS DOH Prevention Agenda Dashboard provides state and county level data based on the state’s Prevention Agenda including indicators for disparities, healthy & safe environment, chronic diseases, communicable diseases, women, infants & children and mental, emotional & behavioral health.
County Health Rankings is a resource allowing for health outcomes and factors reports for counties across the United States. It helps viewers understand how health is influenced by where we live, work, play and work.
For assistance using these sites or to request data, please contact Essex County Health Department at (518) 873-3500.
This Department, in collaboration with local hospitals and as part of a regional Community Health Assessment & Planning Committee, has been actively engaged in data collection and analysis during the 2022 year.
Data collection includes hundreds of indicators from numerous local, state and national data sources and looks at qualitative and quantitative data.
Community Health Assessment and Improvement Plan 2022 - 2024
This Department, in collaboration with local hospitals and as part of a regional Community Health Assessment & Planning Committee, has been actively engaged in data collection and analysis during the 2022 year.
Data collection includes hundreds of indicators from numerous local, state and national data sources and looks at qualitative and quantitative data.
Priority Area & Status in Focus Areas- Chronic Diseases
Priority Areas & Status in Focus Areas:
RED
(Not Started)
YELLOW
(Partially Met)
BLUE
(Mostly Met)
GREEN
(Met)
Chronic Diseases
Focus Area
Intervention
Lead
Partner(s)
Status
Quality nutrition & physical activity in early learning & childcare centers
ECHD
K-12 Schools
Health Eating & Food Security
Physical activity & nutrition before, during, & after school
ECHD
K-12 Schools
Fruit & vegetable incentive programs
ECHD
K-12 Schools
Physical Activity
Community physical activity programs
ECHD
Media
Facilitate tobacco dependence treatment
NCHHN
Providers
Promote treatment of tobacco dependence
ECHD/AH
Media/CBO’s
Tobacco Prevention
Healthcare provider involvement in quit attempts
ECHD
Providers
Policy action to reduce tobacco marketing
CVFC
Students
Decrease availability of flavored tobacco products
CVFC
Businesses
Systems change for cancer screening reminders
AH
CBO’s
Preventative Care & Management
Remove barriers to cancer screening
UVMHN-ECH
Increase colorectal cancer screening
ECHD
Media
Priority Area & Status in Focus Areas - Healthy Women, Infants, & Children
Priority Areas & Status in Focus Areas:
RED
(Not Started)
YELLOW
(Implementation)
BLUE
(Mostly Met)
GREEN
(Met)
Healthy Women, Infants & Children
Focus Area
Intervention
Lead
Partner(s)
Status
Maternal & Women’s Health
Preventive medical visits for women
UVMHN-ECH
Depression screening for pregnant & postpartum women
ECHD
Access to breastfeeding support
ECHD
Providers
Perinatal & Infant Health
Increase breastfeeding support
UVMHN-ECH
Capacity of home visiting programs
ECHD / Healthy Families North Country
Child & Adolescent Health
Family-centered services for supporting children with special healthcare needs
ECHD
Providers
Cross Cutting Healthy Women, Infants & Children
Collaboration with providers that serve women infants and children
ECHD
CBO & Providers
Priority Area & Status in Focus Areas - Well-Being & Substance Use & Mental Health Disorders
Priority Areas & Status in Focus Areas:
RED
(Not Started)
YELLOW
(Implementation)
BLUE
(Mostly Met)
GREEN
(Met)
Well-Being & Substance Use & Mental Health Disorders
Focus Area
Intervention
Lead
Partner(s)
Status
Evidence-based home visiting programs
ECHD
Media
Promote Well-Being
Promote inclusion, integration, and competence
UVMHN-ECH
Thoughtful messaging on mental illness & substance use
ECHD
Media
School-based prevention
The Prevention Team
K-12 Schools
SBIRT
UVMHN-ECH
Trauma informed approaches in prevention programs
ECMH
CBOs
Access to MOUD
UVMHN-ECH
Access to overdose reversal
Alliance for Positive Health
Pharmacies
Prevent Mental Health & Substance Use Disorders
Opioid Stewardship
UVMHN-ECH
Safe disposal for Rx drugs
AH
CBOs
Trauma informed approaches
ECHD
Providers
ACEs screening in primary care
UVMHN-ECH
Evidence-based home visiting programs
ECHD
Providers
Multi-level intervention model
ECMH
CVFC
Concurrent therapy for mental illness and nicotine addiction
ECMH
CVFC
Archived Community Health Assessment & Planning
The purpose of the Community Health Assessment (CHA) 2019 and Community Health Improvement/Service Plan (CHISP) 2019-2021 is to demonstrate an ongoing understanding of the significant health needs of Essex County residents and actions necessary to address these needs.
Significant attention was given to creating a report that is not only informative to the lead agencies engaged in the assessment, but one that is useful to a wide variety of individuals, groups, and organizations. This is because in order to improve the health of communities, the whole community must engaged.
This report continues a long history of data gathering and analysis from a variety of sources including local, regional, state and national entities. It includes primary and secondary data; as well as quantitative and qualitative data.
Several components of this assessment are improvements from previous assessments. The enhancements include:
- Integration of input from local residents and community stakeholders;
- Consideration of health by sub-population;
- Identification of disparities in health by sub-population;
- Examination of local social determinants of health; and
- Identification of community assets that can be mobilized to improve the health of our community.
Additionally, higher levels of engagement were achieved through intervention planning efforts from previous assessments. This includes:
- Convening work groups to review health outcomes and contributing factors
- Engaging partners to evaluate contributing factors to determine true root cause(s) that lead to poor health outcomes and disparate health indicators in certain communities, groups, locations;
- Working to examine the existing assets/programs/initiatives; and
- Collectively selecting the strategies that are most likely to result in measurable health gains; address the disparities identified; and be implemented successfully among partners.
We encourage residents, community leaders, organizational executives, and everyone interested to read this report about resident health including the community plan for addressing priority health needs.
Because of the size of this report, contents for web display are broken into Parts as downloadable below. Appendices are also available as downloadable documents; below.
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Cover-ContentsDownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Executive SummaryDownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Part I IntroductionDownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Part II CHADownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Part III CHISPDownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Part IV Dissemination PlanDownload
ESSEX_CHA_CHISP_Part V Appendices ListDownload
Appendix 1 ARHN Stakeholder Survey ReportDownload
Appendix 2 ARHN Essex County Health Indicators Data SheetsDownload
Appendix 3 ARHN Community Profile Data SheetsDownload
Appendix 4- Collaborative Committees ListDownload
Appendix 5 Distributed Focus Group Analysis ReportDownload
Appendix 6 Community Survey Analysis ReportDownload
Appendix 7 Stakeholder Survey Analysis ReportDownload
Appendix 8 Master Source ListDownload
Appendix 9 Prioritization MatrixDownload
Appendix 10 CHISP Work Plan.pdf(small)Download
Essex_Combined_CHIP CSP Progress Report 2018 FinalDownload
Essex_Combined_CHIP CSP Progress Report 2017
CHA-CHIP-CSP-2016-ExecutiveSummary
Community Health Assessment 2016; Improvement & Service Plan 2016-2018
Appendix-A-DataConsultants-Sources-Methodology
Appendix-B-QualitativeData-StakeholdersSummary
Appendix-C-ARHN-CHA-Committee-Members-And-Meetings-Dates
Appendix-D-NYSDOH-Prevention-Agenda
Appendix-E-PrioritizationTool-Final-Essex-2016
Appendix-F-CSP-CHIP-Update-Summaries
Appendix-G-LocalCommunityServicePlan-Essex-2017
Appendix-I-Educational-System-Profile
Community Health Improvement Plan, 2014-2017 – Essex County CHIP 2013 Final.

