Needs Assessment

Needs assessment is a process or a systematic set of procedures undertaken for the purpose of setting priorities and making decisions about program or organizational improvement or allocation of resources. The priorities come from identified needs, which are measured discrepancies (gaps) between the current (what is) state of affairs of a group or organization and the desired (what should be) state in regard to variables of interest. A prioritized need can be thought of as representing a problem or situation that should be rectified for the good of the organization and the groups it serves.

The general steps in the needs assessment process are initial focusing on an area of concern for the assessment; determining and prioritizing the “what should be”s; ascertaining the current status, or “what is”; identifying discrepancies between what is and what should be; rank-ordering discrepancies; causally analyzing the greatest discrepancies; selecting a solution strategy; and designing an action plan for implementation. The needs assessment process itself should be evaluated, although this is not often done.

The seemingly simple procedure of assessment and the idea of need quickly become complicated due to factors such as organizations' having many needs with insufficient resources to resolve all of them, multiple constituencies (with different needs) being served by one organization, stakeholder groups within and outside of organizations having varied perceptions of what needs should be accorded high priority and what strategies should be used to resolve them, obtaining agreement on the what-should-be status, collecting sufficient and meaningful information about the whatis condition, and using multiple methods to assess the what-is condition that either might not triangulate or might even be in conflict. Let us briefly examine the subtle nature of the determination of the what-shouldbe and what-is states.

With regard to the what-should-be side of the equation, most needs are value driven in areas related to health, education, social welfare, and mental health. It is relatively easy to ascertain what should be for some dimensions of health. Recognized standards exist and are commonly accepted. If an individual's temperature is 105°F and a small range around 98.6 degrees is normal, that individual clearly has a health need. The same line of thinking can be applied to blood pressure and levels of low and high density lipids in cholesterol as well as overall cholesterol. Even here, however, there is a subtle yet apparent distinction between short-term needs (a fever) and long-term needs (elevated cholesterol).

Further, in what seems like a straightforward topic such as health, the what-should-be condition can be value laden and tenuous to describe. If the concern is wellness, what does that mean to the general public, to health practitioners, and so forth? Undoubtedly myriad connotations and meanings could and would be ascribed to the term, and these play a major role in any attempt to come up with a comprehensive and accepted general description of it. Moreover, what [Page 277]would be the specific indicators of wellness and what would be the standards that are to be expected (e.g., running a certain distance in a specified time every other day, running that distance faster, running more regularly at a slower pace, etc.)? What does it mean to be physically fit? Would the average person have a different view from an individual who routinely follows a strenuous daily workout regimen?

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