Guilford County taking residents' opinions on public health through a new online survey

Guilford County residents have an opportunity to share their public health concerns with county officials via a recently released community survey.

The Community Health Assessment is the county’s first since 2019. Guilford County Community Health Educator Laura Mrosla is managing the project. She said the county is trying something new this time. On top of 420 interviews with residents, there will also be an online component in the form of a community health opinion survey.

“So we really want to hear kind of what’s working well, what things have given people hope or inspiration,” Mrosla said. “We also want to learn about what policies and systems kind of help build a healthy and safe community as well as maybe policies and systems that may get in the way of that.”

A multi-faceted look at the state of public health in the county, the health assessment takes into account input from government agencies, health care organizations and subject matter experts.

That information will be compiled along with the comments from community members and be presented to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services this fall. 

Mrsola said the assessment will be made available to the public. 

“All of that we look at to get a clearer picture of what community members are facing on a day to day basis,” Mrsola said. “Collectively, all of that informs our work as a public health department and also the collective action that we take with current partners, new partners.”

Because this is the county’s first health assessment since the COVID-19 pandemic, Mrsola said questions in the community survey were more geared toward social health.

“We’ve asked this in the past, but we really wanted to make it a priority in the face-to-face survey that we did in the fall,” said Mrosla. “We asked a lot more questions about social determinants of health, about challenges around transportation, food security, cost of living in terms of housing, isolation, mental health. 

Adults 18 and older who want to participate in the survey can call the Guilford County Division of Public Health at 336-641-7777or visit the survey website.