3
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSES
Key Components
External Assessment
Internal Assessment
The “strategic” part of the planning process is the attention to the
current external and internal environment and the changes needed
to improve the health of the Michigan citizens within a jurisdiction.
There are two components to an environmental analysis: internal
assessments and external assessments. Remember, a strategic plan
must be realistic and attainable, so it is critical to understand the
internal capabilities and how they are affected by factors outside of the health
department. While there are multiple tools available to complete each of these assessments, this
guidebook provides two environmental analysis tools: External Analysis (External Assessment) and SWOT Analysis
(Internal Assessment).
External Assessment
An external assessment is used to identify external trends, events, or factors that may hinder or support the decisions
the health department ultimately makes about its direction, objectives, and strategies. To simplify the external
assessment, it may be necessary to restrict the analysis to those areas relevant to the health department avoiding
extensive surveys of trends, and focus on those more significant to impact the strategies. Appendix C provides an
external analysis tool that is divided into five areas: economic, technological, government, socio-cultural, and future. The
impact on elements from these five areas can be big or small, but it is important to be aware of these potential factors
that may affect your health department’s direction and strategies. For example, the requirements related to LHD
services specified in Michigan’s Public Health Code, elsewhere in state law, in contract, or in current appropriation
boilerplate will have an effect on the direction of the health department. Appendix D briefly describes required, basic,
essential, and allowable services and includes other statutory information and requirements for services that the health
department would want to consider as part of its planning process.
Internal Assessment
Administrators often start their internal assessment with questions like how
well is the current strategy working, what is the current situation, or what
are the strengths and weaknesses of the health department. A popular
internal assessment used by administrators to create an overview of the
health department’s strategic situation is SWOT. SWOT is an acronym for
the internal Strengths and Weaknesses of the local health department and
the environmental Opportunities and Threats facing the local health
department. SWOT is a simple and powerful tool used for strategy
development taking into consideration the local health department’s
internal capabilities and key resources and using the results to shape
strategic strategies. (Appendix E provides a SWOT template). When
matched with an external assessment, the process of internal
assessment provides the critical foundation for prioritizing strategies.