Improving Population Health

HIA: A Practical Tool for Factoring Health into Decision Making Across Sectors

By Pamela Russo, MD, MPH

Staying healthy, whether we’re talking about individuals or populations, is influenced by people’s access to high quality health care and clinical prevention - but there is powerful evidence that staying healthy is more strongly influenced by people’s education, job opportunities, economic status, and the social and physical environmental conditions where they are born, grow, live work, and age. This understanding needs to be conveyed in a useful way to those making decisions on policies, programs and projects in non-health sectors such as transportation, energy production, labor, or education, who rarely consider the consequences of their decisions on factors that influence health. Absent the consideration of effects on human health, we have often unintentionally created conditions that are either hazardous to human health or create barriers for people to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors. How can we convert the evidence on the multiple factors that drive population health into something decision-makers can use to build health into their equations?

Will the Jobs Bill Impact Population Health?

By David A. Kindig, MD, PhD

The last week has seen much attention devoted to the issue of jobs and unemployment in our country. Presidential elections often hinge on the state of the economy and the persistence of high unemployment rates will likely play a greater role in 2012 than in previous periods. While a growing literature shows that displaced workers (defined as individuals who lose their jobs as part of plant closings, mass layoffs, and other firm-level employment reductions) tend to experience significant long-term earnings losses as well as decreased job stability, lower employment rates, earlier retirement, lower personal spending, and decreased health insurance coverage.

In addition to these primarily economic effects, there are likely to be health effects as well. Unemployment (measured as the percent of the population age 16 and over that is unemployed but seeking work) is one of seven key measures in the County Health Rankings’ Social and Economic Factors, but is only briefly mentioned in Healthy People 2020’s new section on the Social Determinants of Health.

Pop Health Twitter Roundup (9/22/11)

The latest and greatest from @PopHealth:

Not happy with the USDA's MyPlate guidelines, Harvard professors came up with their own

Global & Local: Designing Cities with Children in Mind

Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder: "Health is the foundation for Michigan's economic transformation"

Making it in the U.S. -- More than Just Hard Work

Employment prospects for low-qualified people are much dimmer than those for their more highly qualified counterparts

Nourishing NYC: working to eliminate the correlation between obesity and poverty

Claims data from 4 major insurers to become available to researchers through new Health Care Cost Institute

2011 MacArthur Fellow Roland Fryer examines causes and consequences of economic disparity due to race and inequality

Population Health Eye on Community Colleges

By Kirstin Q. Siemering, DrPH

We’ve often discussed the importance of education for population health. An individual’s level of educational attainment is important for ensuring both income and health. The level of education of the workforce in a community is also important for economic growth. In a 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education article, Chairman of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce Mark Bouchard did a “then and now” comparison of how companies approach location decisions. Ten years ago, Bouchard said, the norm was for such efforts to be led by a firm’s real estate committee. These days, leadership is more often than not provided by human resource officials wanting to “know about the quality of the work force.” Since the article was published, this message has only become more relevant – and given the current 9% national unemployment rate, will likely remain so for some time.

While it may seem as if policymakers and advocates focus more on the importance of early childhood education and high school completion than on higher education, a recent and growing spotlight on community colleges has begun to draw attention to the challenges and opportunities of this piece of the puzzle. This past spring, the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation released Community Colleges and Regional Recovery: Strategies for State Action to promote the idea that the time is ripe for states “to maximize their return on every public investment dollar for long-term, sustainable economic growth.” While the report is not framed in population health terms, its message clearly aligns with a population health framework that recognizes social and economic factors as key drivers of health.

Pop Health Twitter Roundup (9/14/11)

The latest and greatest from @PopHealth:

• New from Health Affairs:  "A Decade Of Health Care Cost Growth Has Wiped Out Real Income Gains For An Average US Family"

• Cities versus rural for healthy living

• Massachusetts Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Minimize Disparities In Health Care Prices

• Medicare Chief Donald Berwick turns 65, signs up

• Supporting Health in All Policies: National Research Council gives guidance on use of Health Impact Assessment

• Cross-state partnership creates a win-win for maternal & child health

• Heard about RWJF's new initiative to transform health care?

• New bike share program offering $15/yr memberships for low income residents & free helmet

• U.S. Census reveals current poverty rate highest since 1993

CMS Turns an Ear to Population Health

By David A. Kindig, MD, PhD

Last month I was privileged to be part of a group invited to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (“Innovation Center”) to discuss population health models and opportunities. Why would the federal agency with the overwhelming job of controlling health care costs and implementing health reform be concerned about this?

The reason is that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is viewing its approach to health improvement through the lens of the Triple Aim, with its Innovation Center being a new engine for revitalizing and sustaining Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and ultimately, for improving the health care system for all Americans.

Pop Health Twitter Roundup (9/7/11)

The latest and greatest from @PopHealth:

• Families feeling sharp edge of state budget cuts

• NACCHO has released its 2010 National Profile of Local Health Departments

• Colleges increasingly inhospitable to smoking

• Announcing plans for a course on telling the stories of public and population health

• Hoping for Change: Health and Social Disparities Facing Men and Boys of Color

• Coming soon from the National Research Council -- new report on the role of Health Impact Assessment

• New report from TFAH & RWJF -- Remembering 9/11 and Anthrax: Public Health's Vital Role in Nat'l Defense

• F.D.A. to review safety of popular bone drugs

• Food for thought: revive home economics classes to fight obesity?

• Great post on struggles grocery stores find in food deserts