Improving Population Health

What Works for Health – A New Tool from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

By Bridget Booske Catlin, PhD, MHSA

When it comes to developing and implementing solutions to problems that affect our communities, evidence matters. Implementing or adapting strategies that are proven increases the likelihood of success in improving community health. Investments in strategies that are shown to work are smart investments that can stretch the impact of scarce dollars. Developed by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, What Works for Health is an online tool that you can use to find policies and programs that have been shown to improve community health.

Using the County Health Rankings for Health Policy Ethics with the Kansas Legislative Health Academy

By Erika Blacksher, PhD

The County Health Rankings paint a granular picture of morbidity and mortality in more than 3,000 U.S. counties. By ranking counties within each state, these data depict inequalities in health at the regional level; by framing these variations in terms of geography and social determinants, these data implicate broad social structures in health and disease; and by specifying health in terms of preventable morbidity and premature mortality, these data describe an important human good. In these ways, the County Health Rankings make vivid an important moral question: Are these  inequalities in health ethically acceptable?

Movin' Down the Road to Health

By Julie Willems Van Dijk, RN, PhD

On April 3^rd you received your annual check-up of your community’s health -- the 2012 County Health Rankings. You’ve had a chance to review what’s going well for your community and where you are lagging behind others. But now what? What can you do to make your community a healthier place?

Since the inaugural release of the County Health Rankings in 2010, hundreds of people have contacted us to ask these questions and we’ve directed them to our Take Action cycle. It’s a simple and straightforward process. Work with other key partners, because we know solving issues like poor high school graduation rates, unemployment, excessive drinking, unhealthy air, or inadequate health care require the wisdom and resources of people from all walks of life. Gather information. Set priorities. Find the most effective approaches to address your priorities and then just do it!

County health ranks -- Are they a'changin?

By Bridget Booske Catlin, PhD, MHSA

It’s ranking season again (and I’m not talking about NCAA basketball) – the 2012 County Health Rankings will be available tomorrow (April 3, 2012). Since this is our third year of releasing the Rankings for all 50 states, we are fielding questions such as what has changed since last year? If not much has changed, why should anyone pay attention? 

Coming Soon...The Roadmaps to Health Prize

By David A. Kindig MD, PhD and Kirstin Q. Siemering DrPH, RD

On April 3^rd 2012, the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute will make applications available for the inaugural Roadmaps to Health Prize. The Prize is part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded County Health Roadmaps project and will recognize communities across the U.S. that have successfully mobilized to improve population health.

Communities throughout the country are actively engaged in finding ways to increase the health and vitality of residents. The Roadmaps to Health Prize is rooted in the idea that every community is on a unique journey toward better health. The prize will honor the accomplishments of communities along the continuum of this journey, from those that have achieved tremendous success to those that have struggled against great odds and may just be beginning to see results.

The Roadmaps to Health Prize is a place-based prize that will honor whole communities (rather than individuals or individual organizations). All U.S. communities are eligible to apply. For the purposes of the prize, “communities” are defined as towns, cities, counties, regions (such as contiguous towns, cities, or counties), tribes, and tribal communities.

Now Available: "Roadmaps to Health" Community Grants Opportunity

By Phillip O. González

 

Much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor’s office—in our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods. The ability to find good jobs, to prepare children for college and career success, to establish financial security, and to live in safe communities that promote positive relationships among family and friends are not usually thought of as health interventions. However, these factors play an important role in our ability to lead long and healthy lives.

The County Health Rankings, released annually by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), rank the health of counties throughout the nation and clearly show how social and economic factors impact health. They emphasize the role that key factors such as education, income and employment, family and social connectedness, and community safety play in building healthy communities.  However, efforts to address these factors often occur within individual sectors and focus on short-term goals like expanding effective programs.  But what if those efforts could be broadened?  How might the vision and impact be expanded if those efforts were organized to include participants from multiple sectors such as health, the business community, or policymakers?  Might they achieve meaningful, long-term policy change?  And what strategies and tactics would a coalition formed from a diverse group of organizations undertake?

County Health Roadmaps

By Bridget Booske Catlin, PhD, MHSA

Hopefully, by now everyone who reads this blog has heard of the County Health Rankings but I suspect few of you have heard of the County Health Roadmaps. Ranking the health of nearly every county in the nation, the County Health Rankings illustrate what we know when it comes to what’s making people sick or healthy. The new County Health Roadmaps show what we can do to create healthier places to live, learn, work and play. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI) to bring this program to cities, counties and states across the nation.

The County Health Roadmaps project includes several efforts to build connections with local communities, national partners and leaders across all sectors to improve health. The project includes grants to coalitions across the U.S. that are working to improve the health of people in their communities; grants to national organizations to mobilize local leaders and affiliates to improve health; a prize program to recognize communities taking action and whose promising efforts will likely lead to better health; and tools and resources to help groups working to improve the health of people in their communities. 

Wake-Up Call: The 2011 County Health Rankings

By Bridget C. Booske, PhD, MHSA

Later tonight, our team at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute will release the 2011 County Health Rankings.

These rankings will provide snapshots of community health for over 3,000 counties throughout the country. In every state, people will be comparing how counties rank on their health outcomes and health factors, based on a wide variety of measures from mortality and quality of life to high school graduation rates, unemployment rates, obesity rates, and air quality. Our model emphasizes that health care is just one of many factors that determine how healthy we are and how long we live and underscores the importance of evidence-based programs and policies to drive population health improvement.

Countdown to the 2011 County Health Rankings

By Patrick Remington, MD, MPH

The 2011 County Health Rankings will be released one week from today, on Wednesday, March 30. These county rankings, now in their second year, are produced by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in collaboration with and support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

My experience with county health rankings dates back to 2002, when I began working with colleagues here at the University of Wisconsin to develop a model that would broadly assess community health throughout the state. Our approach is unique in that it creates a common yardstick for assessing the overall health of an entire community. Our national County Health Rankings also show how counties within each state compare on many different factors that influence health -- such as high school graduation rates, obesity rates, and the percent of children in poverty.

We were tremendously excited last year to put this information at people’s fingertips with the Rankings’ inaugural release. The sustained volume of traffic to the website lets us know that this type of information is needed and inspires community efforts to improve population health.

Want to Help Put the County Health Rankings at People’s Fingertips? Submit an Idea to Health 2.0 by September 15

By Kirstin Q. Siemering, DrPH

The internet is an incredible vehicle for helping us get things done, by putting information, people, and goods right at our fingertips. However, the public and nonprofit sectors have been comparatively slow to embrace the medium’s potential for innovation.

But not anymore. 

We have entered the era of gov2.0 and there’s no looking back.

Crowdsourcing is just one of a number of internet-based strategies that nonprofits are employing to raise awareness, generate potential solutions to challenging problems and questions, and conserve resources.

In collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and UWPHI, San Francisco’s Health 2.0 just released a crowdsourcing challenge called The Health Factor: Using the County Health Rankings to Make Smart Decisions. The goal of this challenge is to bring the County Health Rankings to the places where people go to get information to inform their decisions about where to live, where to locate a business or invest, or where to target services and philanthropic support. To be considered for the $2,500 prize, ideas must be submitted by September 15, 2010.

This competition follows on the heels of the County Health Rankings Community Health Action Forum. The forum was initiated by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to gather ideas for how communities can improve health outcomes. The 110 ideas submitted by the August 6th deadline are currently under review.

Minnesota Idea Open is also a frontrunner in crowdsourcing among nonprofits, recently hosting its first $15,000 challenge to address obesity. The Saint Paul Foundation will soon be using the site to sponsor a “micro-challenge” that puts a “fresh face” on its traditional grantmaking process.

But crowdsourcing is just one approach that nonprofits are employing. In other Web 2.0 arenas, a quickly growing number of sites, apps, widgets, and other virtual gadgets are creating opportunities interactive, web-based population health improvement, such as:

• Salt Lake Valley (Utah) Health Department’s “One Small Change” campaign (using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr)
• Pacific Disaster Center’s Disaster Alert (for iPhone and iPad)
• CityLife (a mobile app to be released for local government)
• Assetmap (coming soon to help groups “inventory, visualize, and leverage” their social capital)

Please help spread the word about the Health 2.0 competition and tell us your ideas about other ways to use the web to promote population health. Leave your comments below or feel free to just send us an email. Thanks in advance for joining the conversation!

Kirstin Siemering, DrPH is a researcher with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.