South Heartland District Health Department

New priorities, new plan for South Heartland’s counties!

October 03, 2025

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South Heartland District Health Department is pleased to announce new priorities and a new community health improvement plan for Adams, Clay, Nuckolls and Webster counties.

We have been working with our community partners for more than a year, doing a deep dive to explore our current community health needs, getting a picture of how healthy our communities are, and making a plan to improve our community health. This is something we do every six years to see whether health outcomes and access are improving in our counties and where we still have work to do.

South Heartland staff gather the data and information needed to make decisions as a “community” about what we can do to improve the public’s health. Our understanding of our community’s needs comes from comprehensive assessments, analysis and simply listening to community members.

The process involved gathering and summarizing information from focus groups and community member surveys, and collecting local health statistics. We asked community members what keeps them from being their healthiest, what health concerns they have for their families, and what community health issues concerned them most. We reviewed environmental threats in our area (like lead and nitrates); rates of chronic diseases (like diabetes, heart disease and cancer); most common communicable diseases (like foodborne illnesses and sexually transmitted diseases); and a whole host of other health information.

Next, we summarized themes from all of this information and developed fact sheets to help others see the picture of our community health – where our communities are doing well health-wise and where we have room to improve. We shared these fact sheets at a community health meeting in September 2024. This was a district-wide meeting, virtually connecting 4 physical meeting sites in each of our four counties, with a central facilitator plus staff at each site, to give people the opportunity to participate from across the district.

More than 85 people came to the priority-setting meeting, including members of community organizations and government officials; education, health care and behavioral health representatives; business leaders; and community members from various walks of life. Together, we reviewed the results and listened to experts, allowed discussion, then voted on what areas to focus hard on over the next six years. Through this process, three priority areas were selected by our community: Mental Wellbeing, Chronic Disease Conditions, and Senior Health.

To create the actual community health improvement plan, we continued district-wide meetings in November 2024 and January 2025. Meeting participants worked together to identify proven, science-based strategies to use to advance mental wellbeing, reduce the risk of chronic disease, and to improve senior health outcomes. The participants also identified some organizations and individuals that could help make the plan happen, and chose ways to measure progress on the plan.

This plan is our road map for the next 6 years. There are multiple strategies outlined for each of the three priorities, for a total of 15 strategies. Each strategy includes steps to move us toward a goal. There are also suggested measures to help us monitor our progress on each strategy, and to help us demonstrate how well we are doing and what difference we are making.

The resulting Community Health Improvement Plan is also aligned with Nebraska’s health improvement priorities, so our local efforts will be contributing to the bigger state picture.

We wish to thank our partners and community members for your many contributions to the process of community health assessment, priority-setting, and health improvement planning.  We thank you for completing a community health survey, participating in a focus group, submitting data or health information collected by your organization, serving as an expert for one of the health topics, reviewing fact sheets about various health issues and concerns, ranking the health concerns and choosing priorities, and helping us define strategies to address the health priorities.

All of these joint efforts have resulted in this new 2025-2030 Community Health Improvement Plan that will guide our collective work over the next 6 years.  We welcome everyone to take a look at the plan, which is posted on our website: southheartlandhealth.ne.gov.

In addition, whether or not you were involved in activities that led up to the plan, we invite you to join us in carrying out the plan! Do you have interest or expertise in any of these priority areas - Mental Wellbeing, Chronic Disease Conditions, or Senior Health? If so, we invite you to contact us to find out how you can contribute to South Heartland’s Community Health Improvement Plan efforts over the next 6 years.  We’d love to have you join us as we strive toward our vision of Healthy People in Health Communities!

To find out how you can be involved and how you might contribute to some of the health improvement plan activities, contact the south heartland district health department at 1-877-238-7595 or submit a request through our website at southheartlandhealth.ne.gov.

Listen to an interview about the CHIP with KHAS Radio's Brandon McDermott:    /vimages/shared/vnews/stories/68dfce0210478/BEVER100625.mp3

Michele Bever is the executive director for South Heartland District Health Department, serving Adams, Clay, Nuckolls and Webster counties in south central Nebraska. She may be reached at 1-877-238-7595.

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