Expanding health care students’ understanding of integrating community health needs assessment into person-centered care through interprofessional education

The integration of community health needs assessment into person-centered care represents a critical evolution in healthcare delivery that requires sophisticated interprofessional collaboration and evidence-based practice competencies. To examine healthcare students’ understanding of community health needs assessment and its integration with person-centered care principles following participation in an interprofessional education module. A qualitative descriptive study examined responses from 601 healthcare students across five professional programs who completed Module 3 of an interprofessional education journey. Data was collected through open-ended survey questions and analyzed using constructivist thematic analysis. Four major themes emerged: (1) Evidence-based foundation for practice, (2) Bridge between individual and population health, (3) Collaborative partnership approaches, and (4) Holistic care integration. Students demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of community health assessment purposes and successfully integrated clinical and public health perspectives. Interprofessional education effectively prepares students to think across individual and population health levels, with particular strength in recognizing collaborative approaches as fundamental to both clinical and community health practice.