Addressing health problems in communities takes more than understanding what causes them or who they impact most. It takes a motivated network of stakeholders to define policies, bring resources, and build appropriate programs. What can you do to successfully convene and motivate local thought leaders to help you in your public health cause?
Motivating others to work with you requires a command of the relevant facts to build a reasonable conversation. Commanding local data, defining local health problems (in terms of needed policies, plans and programs) will help you form a team of local stakeholders that can support your vision of a healthier community.
This year the RWJF released its fifth edition of its county health ranking report. The report focuses on the relationship between how you feel and where you live. The website provides a user friendly set of online tools for understanding demographic variables and performing health analysis that can help you increase your “health literacy” as a community member, stakeholder, policy maker and leader with a focus on addressing community health challenges.
The following resources will help you make progress on the health issues impacting your community.
The Policy ThinkShop provides you with the following summary of the findings and user friendly links to the website where you can plugin your state, county, etc., and get your data:
http://www.countyhealthrankings.org
Also, you can search the site for best practice programs and policies:
http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/roadmaps/what-works-for-health
“This year’s County Health Rankings report shows some important trends, including:
Teen birth rates have decreased about 25 percent since 2007.
The rate of preventable hospital stays decreased about 20 percent from 2003 to 2011.
Smoking rates dropped from 21 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2012.
Completion of at least some college attendance increased slightly from 59 percent in 2005 to 64 percent in 2012.
This year’s report also features several new measures:
Housing:
Almost 1 in 5 households are overcrowded, pose a severe cost burden, or lack adequate facilities to cook, clean, or bathe.
These problems are greatest on the East and West coasts, in Alaska, and in parts of the South.
Transportation:
More than three-quarters of workers drive to work alone and among them 33 percent drive longer than a half hour each way.
Driving contributes to physical inactivity, obesity and air pollution.
Food Environment:
People in many parts of the country face food insecurity or the threat of hunger and limited access to healthy foods, especially in counties in the Southwest, across parts of the South and in the Western United States.
Mental Health:
Amid growing attention to mental health care, the availability of mental health providers in the healthiest counties in each state is 1.3 times higher than in the least healthy counties.
The west and northeast regions of the country have the best access to mental health providers.
Injury-Related Deaths:
The third-leading cause of death in the United States, injury death rates are 1.7 times higher in the least healthy counties than in the healthiest counties.
These rates are particularly high in the Southwest, part of the Northwest including Alaska and in the East South Central and Appalachian regions.
Exercise Opportunities:
Access to parks or recreational facilities in the healthiest counties is 1.4 times higher than in the least healthy counties.”
Filed under: ACA and Medicaid, Aging, Behavioral Health Outcomes, Blogosphere, Civic Engagement, Data Trends - American Demographics and Public Opinion, Health Literacy, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medicaid Expansion, News, Policy ThinkShop Comments on other media platforms
June 24, 2014 • 4:48 am 1
The Policy ThinkShop brings your attention to the latest resources on the ACA reform: Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released its first survey of the population finding new health coverage under the recently implemented ACA reform. The survey delineates two main groups taking advantage of the increased access to health insurance: those who had non-group coverage and those who had no insurance at all. The experiences of these two groups may prove important, the report goes on to say, with significant implications on how the success of the ACA reform is judged.
Apparently, the success of the ACA reform in brining people into the insured fold may be limited by financial literacy, insurance literacy, and health literacy deficits evident in the Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
A preliminary read of the survey report findings by The Policy ThinkShop points to an emergent need to address health literacy in the newly covered group in order to ensure that coverage recipients understand how to take advantage of their presumed efficacy in the insurance market and in their presumed increased access to healthcare itself and cost saving prevention health services. According to the survey:
“Health insurance is complicated, and many previous studies have documented gaps in health insurance literacy among consumers. The survey finds evidence of this among those who purchase their own coverage, with many respondents unable to answer some basic questions about their plans. For example, nearly one in five non-group enrollees (18 percent) say they don’t know the amount of their monthly premium and almost four in ten (37 percent) don’t know the amount of their annual deductible. Among those with ACA-compliant plans, three in ten (30 percent) say they don’t know the metal level of their plan (platinum, gold, silver or bronze), and among those who report getting a government subsidy to defray their premium cost, nearly half (47 percent) couldn’t say what the amount of the subsidy is.”
The survey report goes on to highlight the segment of the population surveyed who are more privileged because of their prior experience obtaining insurance:
“Some groups are more knowledgeable than others, including college graduates, those with higher incomes, and small business owners. Plan switchers, who likely have more experience buying coverage in the non-group market, are also more likely than those who were previously uninsured to be able to report the metal level of their plan and their premium and deductible amounts.”
Policy ThinkShop Policy Resources for you –
You can read the entire survey report at:
http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/survey-of-non-group-health-insurance-enrollees-findings-final1.pdf
Report Executive Summary
“January 1, 2014 marked the beginning of several provisions of the Affordable Care Act ACA making significant changes to the non-group insurance market, including new rules for insurers regarding who they must cover and what they can charge, along with the opening of new Health Insurance Marketplaces also known as “Exchanges” and the availability of premium and cost-sharing subsidies for individuals with low to moderate incomes. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services and others provide some insight into how many people purchased insurance using the new Marketplaces and the types of plans they picked, but much remains unknown about changes to the non-group market as a whole. The Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees is the first in a series of surveys taking a closer look at the entire non-group market. This first survey was conducted from early April to early May 2014, after the close of the first ACA open enrollment period. It reports the views and experience of all non-group enrollees, including those with coverage obtained both inside and outside the Exchanges, and those who were uninsured prior to the ACA as well as those who had a previous source of coverage non-group or otherwise.”
via Survey of Non-Group Health Insurance Enrollees | The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Rate this:
Share this Policy Think Shop Resource:
Like this:
Filed under: ACA and Medicaid, access to education, Aging, Behavioral Health Outcomes, Blogosphere, Children and Poverty, Civic Engagement, consumers, Health Literacy, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Maternal and Child Health, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, News, Philanthropy, Policy ThinkShop Comments on other media platforms, Public Health, Public Policy