The Planned Approach To Community Health (PATCH) is a community health planning model that was developed in the mid-1980s by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in partnership with state and local health departments and community groups.

PATCH is a process that involves and enables members of a community to plan, implement, and evaluate health promotion and disease prevention programs. The PATCH process helps a community establish a health promotion team, collect and use local data, set health priorities, and design and evaluate interventions.

The goal of PATCH is to increase the capacity of communities to plan, implement, and evaluate comprehensive, community-based health promotion programs targeted toward priority health problems. PATCH objectives aim to reduce the prevalence of modifiable risk factors for the leading causes of preventable disease, death, disability, and injury.

Elements critical to PATCH

Five elements are considered critical to the success of any community health promotion process.

• Community members participate in the process.

• Data guide the development of programs.

• Participants develop a comprehensive health promotion strategy.

• Evaluation emphasizes feedback and program improvement.

• The community capacity for health promotion is increased.

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