August 08, 2018

8 Policies that Have Contributed to Place Based Health Disparities Across Generations→

August 08, 2018/ CACHE

"Where you live plays a significant role in how healthy you are. But when it comes to promoting health, not all neighborhoods are created equal. And neighborhoods with the best access to health-promoting resources — like quality housing, good jobs, well-maintained parks, healthy food, and excellent schools — aren’t accessible to everyone.

Today, many of the differences between neighborhoods exist because of decades’ worth of interrelated policies that have cumulatively influenced where investment and opportunity have concentrated and who has access to them. The result is increasing health disparities and exacerbated inequities in communities across the country. Read on to learn more about 8 laws and policies that have created unhealthy places and about tools and resources that can help heal policy harms and create healthy neighborhoods for all..."

Erik Calloway & Chassidy Hanley | August 6, 2018

The read the 8 policies from ChangeLab Solutions, please click here.

August 06, 2018

The Health Opportunity and Equity Initiative (HOPE)

August 06, 2018/ CACHE

"The Health Opportunity and Equity (HOPE) Initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was launched to start a new conversation about health because we believe that every person in the U.S., no matter their background or ZIP code, should have a fair and just opportunity for the best possible health and well-being.

The HOPE Initiative tracks 28 indicators that span the life course, including health outcomes and indicators related to opportunity such as socioeconomic factors, the physical and social environment, and access to health care at the state and national level. Gaps in health do not develop by chance or by choice. These measures were chosen because they reflect the systems and policies that affect health equity. Data are also provided by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, making this the first tool of its kind..."

To learn more about Health Opportunity and Equity Initiative, visit the website here.

August 06, 2018

Housing for health: Nationwide Children's Hospital presents a case study for treating a neighborhood as a patient

August 06, 2018/ CACHE

"Neighborhood effect syndrome, characterized by symptoms of extreme poverty including blight, housing insecurity, racial segregation, trauma, violence, poorly performing schools, low social cohesion and support and environmental toxins, has debilitating consequences on child health. Health care providers frequently encounter challenges to caring for children from affected neighborhoods, and these children often experience poorer outcomes compared to peers in unaffected neighborhoods. Historically, institutions have been largely ineffective in changing these outcomes with one-child-at-a-time tactics.

In a novel approach to improving outcomes for these children, Nationwide Children's leaders with community partners decided to address neighborhood effect syndrome as a target for pediatric health care - treating the neighborhood as a patient. In 2008, Nationwide Children's began collaborating with residents, government entities and social services agencies to develop the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families (HNHF) initiative..."

Read the full press release at EurekAlert and check out the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families resource on Nationwide Children's site.

July 28, 2018

Partnerships for Health Equity and Opportunity: A Healthcare Playbook for Community Developers→

July 28, 2018/ CACHE

"The United States spends nearly $3.5 trillion on medical care each year, with more than 80 percent spent on treating chronic disease — most of which is avoidable and concentrated among those living in low-income communities. Thus, over $1 trillion is spent every year on treating avoidable disease created by conditions of poverty, which can negatively affect the health of future generations.

What if we changed the paradigm from treating to preventing and reinvested that $1 trillion towards eliminating the intergenerational transmission of poor health and poverty? What would it take for prevention to encompass not just diet and exercise, but other dimensions like financial health, stable housing, access to healthy food, education, even community empowerment and agency?

This playbook from PHI's Build Healthy Places Network guides community developers toward partnerships with hospitals and healthcare systems. As stewards for the communities they serve, the community development sector develops and finances the physical spaces, infrastructure, and essential services needed to live a healthy and productive life and can serve as an action arm for advancing population health and health equity."

From Public Health Institute's Build Healthy Places Network comes the report Partnerships for Health Equity and Opportunity: A Healthcare Playbook for Community Developers. This piece can be found on Public Health Institute's Resource Page.

July 28, 2018

Health departments placing stronger emphasis on equity: Achieving social justice in public health→

July 28, 2018/ CACHE

"Data-driven public health policy has long been at the center of the Kansas City health department’s equity work, which began, in earnest, nearly two decades ago after data revealed a more than six-year life expectancy gap between the city’s black and white residents, with about half of the city’s annual deaths attributable to factors such as poverty, segregation, violence and lack of education. The data pushed the agency to begin the process of shifting its focus from health disparities to health inequities, with an eye toward remedying the conditions that confer greater health opportunity to certain populations over others.

After years of work, health equity values are part of everyday practice at the health department, with many of its equity wins driven by a mix of policy, partnership, data and community engagement. Just recently, for example, the health department successfully persuaded the city to adopt an official five-year business development plan that includes a strategic objective to increase overall life expectancy and reduce health inequities, with a goal of incentivizing development in neighborhoods in need of services and jobs..."

First in a series on health equity, which ties into the theme of APHA's 2018 Annual Meeting and Expo: "Creating the Healthiest Nation: Health Equity Now." This piece appears in the July edition of The Nation's Health.

Kim Krisberg | July 2018

July 23, 2018

Can a Community Hospital Stick To Its Mission When It Goes For Profit

July 23, 2018/ CACHE

"After 130 years as a nonprofit with deep roots in the community, Mission Health announced in March that it was seeking to be bought by HCA Healthcare, the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain. HCA owns 178 hospitals in 20 states and the United Kingdom.

The pending sale reflects a controversial national trend in the U.S. as hospitals consolidate at an accelerating pace and the cost of health care continues to rise. Proponents of hospital mergers say the change can help struggling nonprofit hospitals "thrive," with an infusion of cash to invest in updated technology and top clinical staff. But research shows the price of care, especially for low-income patients, usually rises when a hospital joins a for-profit corporation..."

To read the full article, click here.

Steven Findlay | July 19, 2018

This piece appears in Shots: Health News from NPR

July 11, 2018

Nine Lessons for Leaders of Health and Human Services Integration Initiatives (And for the Grantmakers That Want Them to Succeed)→

July 11, 2018/ CACHE

"Collectively addressing the environmental and social factors that influence health, a process known as health and human services integration, is not a new concept in the United States, but our understanding of the value of integration is far ahead of our implementation of integration. Visionary leaders have shown that real integration is possible, that integration can effectively diminish health disparities, and that community life—and human lives—are better off when it can be achieved. Yet, significant barriers continue to stand in the way of integration, including isolated government departments, data systems that rarely “speak” to each other, and siloed funding sources—all of which have emerged organically over many years.

To better understand the current state of health and human services integration across the United States, the Kresge Foundation and the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation (CHRT) at the University of Michigan embarked on an exploration of integration efforts across the country. We tracked the goals of these initiatives; the groups, systems, and programs that had been integrated; the factors that proved critical to success; the outcomes for those who are the most vulnerable (populations such as youth at risk, seniors, and those living in poverty); and, importantly, we recorded the challenges and lessons learned along the way."

Marianne Udow-Phillips, Kathryne O'Grady, Phyllis Meadows | July 10, 2018

This piece appears in Health Affairs Magazine.

July 11, 2018

If I lived on the North side: Neighborhood may matter more than race in breast cancer survival rates →

July 11, 2018/ CACHE

"Racial disparities in breast cancer diagnosis and survival rates may have more to do with neighborhood than race, according to a new University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign analysis. The study looked at patients ages 19 to 91 from breast cancer registries in six states, including Illinois. More than 93,600 black women living in big cities from 1980 to 2010 were included in the data set (approximately 14,000 from Chicagoland), which looked at neighborhood racial composition and segregation poverty rates and access to mammography.

The study found that residential segregation, defined as living in a neighborhood with a predominantly African-American population, significantly increased black women’s rates of late-stage diagnosis and doubled their odds of dying from breast cancer. White women living in predominantly African-American neighborhoods had comparable mortality rates."

Darcel Rockett | July 9, 2018

To read the full article, please click here. This piece appears in the Chicago Tribune.

Articles/Reports

CACHE