CHES (Certified Health Education Specialist) Practice Exam 2025 – Your All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

Identifying issues is a critical first step in the strategic planning process because it involves understanding the current challenges, opportunities, and areas for improvement within an organization or community. This step sets the foundation for all subsequent strategic planning activities by ensuring that the planning process is focused on relevant and significant issues that need to be addressed. By identifying these issues, health education specialists can gather data, analyze trends, and prioritize objectives that will guide the strategic direction of their programs.

Establishing a mission statement, evaluating resource allocation, and hiring new staff may also be components of the overall strategic planning process, but they generally occur after the initial identification of key issues. Creating a mission statement articulates the organization’s purpose and direction but is typically based on the issues and needs identified in the planning phase. Evaluating resource allocation relates to how effectively resources are utilized to address identified issues, and hiring new staff may be a response to needs determined during the planning process rather than a step within it. Thus, the identification of issues is foundational to successful strategic planning.