The Dallas County Chronic Disease Prevention Division was established in 2019. The division follows seven guiding principles: Primary Prevention, Community-based approach/Community capacity building, Partnerships and collaborations, Evidence-based practices and programs, Health disparities and inequities, Impact assessment and evaluation, Health and policy environment.
Primary prevention: All programs and projects will focus on primary prevention without completely ignoring the need for treatment and linkage to care.
Community-based: Most if not all programs and projects need to be community-based with direct community participation when possible. The programs and projects should also aim to build community capacity.
Partnerships and collaborations: Collaboration with stakeholders is key for implementing programs and projects, to optimize utilization of local resources and promote coordination
Evidence-based practices and programs: CDP primarily implements programs that are evidence-based
Health disparities and inequities: Programs and projects implemented by the CDP prioritize historically marginalized communities to reduce existing health disparities and address inequities. Therefore, CDP uses the CHNA document as the main guiding document to identify high prevalence zip codes
Impact assessment and evaluation: Adequate data collection, evaluation and impact assessment are essential to making data-driven decisions to improving existing or adopting new strategies or projects.
Health and policy environment: At the core of the above 6 principles is the last principle that requires programs and projects to primarily have broad scope that influences policies, systems, and the overall health environment. Therefore, the CDP strives to plan, design, and implement programs and projects involving large-scale public health interventions in communities with the highest burden of chronic diseases and risk factors.
