Board of Health Handbook

On January 19, 1949, the Brunswick County Commissioners passed a resolution authorizing the Brunswick County Board of Health to work out a plan for the establishment of a full-time Public Health Department. This decision favorably resolved months of agitation on the part of interested citizens who sought to have Brunswick County added to the list of 96 North Carolina counties with health departments. Read More: A Historical Look at Brunswick County Health Services (PDF).

The mission of BCHS is to preserve, protect, and improve the health of the community. This mission is accomplished through the collection and dissemination of health information, education, and service programs aimed at the prevention of disease, protection of the environment, and improvement of the quality of life of our citizens. In order to fulfill this very broad mission, Brunswick County Health Services partners with the NC Division of Public Health and receives funding and support for some public health programs. This contract process is formalized annually in the Consolidated Agreement between the NC Division of Public Health and Brunswick County Health Services.

• Brunswick County Health Services Mission, Vision, and Values (PDF)

2023-2026 Brunswick County's Strategic Plan (PDF) is an organizational management tool that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. The purpose of the strategic plan is to help guide decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. The strategic plan not only plans where an organization is going, and the actions needed to make progress but also how it will know if it is successful. A yearly review is completed, as well as updating statistics as needed, related to the goals and objectives that are presented in the strategic plan. New issues are added as needed throughout the next three years.

The Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) is conducted by Brunswick County Health Services every three years to determine the community's needs and develop programs to address health priorities. Community Health Opinion Surveys are disseminated to residents, and the results are analyzed and compared to secondary data from the State Center for Health Statistics. Learn more about our past and current CHNA documents and process at:

Learn more about our past and current CHNA documents and process at Community Health Needs Assessment - Brunswick County Government.

The Community Health Assessment Team develops a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) for addressing the health issues deemed as priorities within the Community Health Assessment. The CHIP provides a list of resources and a guide of the interventions to address the health risk that is identified in the CHA. The CHIP is continually updated as programming and interventions are completed and new programs are implemented.

You can view Brunswick County's 2023-2026 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) at: Clear Impact Scorecard.

The State of the County Health (SOTCH) Report is produced each of the three years between CHAs to provide updates on the progress made on the health priorities and identify new health concerns.

View the most recent 2023 State of the County Health Report (SOTCH) at: Clear Impact Scorecard

View the Accreditation of Local Health Departments GS 130A-34.1.

View the Agency Brochure (PDF) and explore the health services website.