In collaboration with the National Network of Public Health Institutes, HRiA worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the development, use, and refinement of the Community Health Improvement Navigator, a technical assistance tool for hospitals, health care institutions, health departments, and community organizations to collaborate and align efforts for community health assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Upon launch of the Navigator, HRiA led an intensive, six-month Learning Collaborative for the CDC. This included a comprehensive application process to select 10 community partnerships for participation, including hospitals, health departments, and community organizations. HRiA developed and implemented the Learning Collaborative curriculum, which included: six 90-minute webinars on the phases of the community health improvement process (e.g., assessment, prioritization, planning, implementation, and evaluation) and the overarching tenets of collaboration, community engagement, communication, and sustainability; technical assistance and facilitated peer-to-peer sharing sessions between webinars; demonstrations on using the Navigator tool to inform an engaged community health improvement process; and a culminating half-day, in-person session for the Learning Collaborative at the Association for Community Health Improvement conference. Learning Collaborative participants completed the sessions with a plan for using the Navigator and advancing their work toward more effective and collaborative community health improvement processes.