The Planned Approach to Community Health (PATCH) was developed in 1983 by the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in partnership with state and local health departments and community groups. It was designed to provide a model to assist state and local public health agencies, in their partnerships with local communities, to plan, conduct, and evaluate health promotion and disease prevention programs. PATCH was also intended to serve as a mechanism to improve links both within communities and between communities and state ealth departments, universities, and other agencies and organizations. PATCH combines the principles of community participation with the diagnostic steps of applied community-level epidemiology. The development of PATCH was influenced by the theoretical assumptions underlying the PRECEDE model, by the literature on community organization and development, and by CDC's tradition of working through state health agencies in the application of health promotion and disease prevention programs.