Resources

Reports & Briefs

Development of the Cookbook: A Guide to Using CDC Data for Rural Analysis

The Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL) partnered with the Office of Rural Health (ORH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop The Cookbook: A Guide to Using CDC Data for Rural Analysis. This resource was created to increase awareness and understanding of rural variables available in public health datasets provided by CDC, which can be used to help inform the rural public health knowledge base. The Cookbook provides step-by-step instructions (i.e., recipes) for accessing and processing CDC data for secondary analysis for rural public health research. Download the briefs below to read about key lessons learned and methods used to develop The Cookbook.  

Download the Cookbook Development Brief | Download the Cookbook Methods Brief

“Resilience Catalysts in Public Health” Evaluation Report

Resilience Catalysts in Public Health (RC) is a national collaborative of local health departments seeking to eliminate adversity, build resilience, and foster equity. Using the Community Resilience Framework aligned with the goals of Public Health 3.0, RC sites receive technical assistance (TA) to apply a public health approach to address adverse childhood experiences and adverse community environments. In April and May 2023, PHIL conducted an evaluation of RC, surveying 29 individuals from 11 of the 13 RC sites and interviewing 19 individuals from nine sites and 14 TA providers/funders. Evaluation findings expand understanding of RC’s preliminary impact and inform implications for theory, practice, and funding in the post COVID-19 context. 

Download the Full Report | Download the Infographic

“Improving Population Health Through Multisector Collaboration” Brief Series

The “Improving Population Health Through Multisector Collaboration” brief series synthesizes lessons learned from PHIL’s Aligning Systems for Health research conducted from May 2020 – November 2022 in six parts. Visit our brief series webpage to access all six briefs.

Evaluation of Tracing Health’s California Contact Tracing Support Initiative – San Bernardino County Integrated Project

This evaluation provides insight into successes and challenges with project design and implementation of Tracing Health’s operations in one California county, San Bernardino. This report investigates project accountability, future project improvement strategies, and knowledge generation and transfer opportunities. Evaluation data include 25 interviews, 439 documents, and one focus group, which were analyzed using framework analysis. Evaluation findings demonstrate how agile and effective support can be provided through multisector partnerships, even in the constantly evolving context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This evaluation provides valuable learnings to ongoing and future multisector collaborative efforts and project implementation.

Download a Poster | Download the Full Report

Survey of Tracing Health’s Multi-State, County-Integrated Programming

This survey was conducted to better understand the strengths, barriers, achievements, and recommendations of Tracing Health’s COVID-19 response efforts across California, Oregon, and Washington states. The survey collected 112 responses (36% response rate) from May – June 2022, which were analyzed using regression analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), paired t-tests, and classical content analysis. This report details key survey findings highlighting the program’s overall program impact, including findings related to staff diversity, training, workforce, local public health capacity, and factors influencing outcomes. Overall, survey respondents reported a high level of satisfaction with their experience working or partnering with Tracing Health.

Landscape of Community Engagement in the Biomedical Field 

The Landscape of Community Engagement in the Biomedical Field report identified and described community engagement practices, research, and actors with a focus on single-cell biology and neurodegeneration, imaging, computational biology, and open science. Evidence was gathered from multiple sources, including academic and professional literature and public websites to learn about the numerous barriers that exist to engaging community members in biomedical research and effective strategies in engaging ethnic and racial minorities and vulnerable populations in research. Findings suggest that biomedical researchers can take advantage of existing resources and lessons-learned as they strive to implement short- and long-term solutions that will meaningfully engage the communities in which they work. 

Community Engagement in Biomedical and Health Sciences Research Study

This study provides a deeper understanding of the motivations, facilitators, and barriers behind conducting and/or funding biomedical and health sciences research that directly engages underrepresented communities of color. Research results lend insight into the current community engagement landscape by showing the various approaches employed to engage communities in research, how funders support community engagement, and how both researchers and funders operationalize community engagement. From this knowledge, funding organizations can gain an extensive understanding of community engagement and how to support researchers in community-engaged research, especially those who work with underrepresented communities of color. 

Download a Two-Page Summary | Download the Full Report

Advancing Equity: Adapting to Local Context and Confronting Power Dynamics. Lessons learned from Accountable Communities of/for Health

In 2021, the Population Health Innovation Lab’s Division of Research and Network Science conducted a study with six Accountable Communities of/for Health (ACH) in Washington and California that sought in-depth answers to the question: “How do local context and power dynamics influence an ACH’s ability to make progress toward improved equity?” Findings from this study are available in this report.

COVID-19 Contact Networks in Hispanic and Latino Communities: Analysis of Contact Tracing Data from a Large California Healthcare Provider Network

The Public Health Institute’s Tracing Health program and Population Health Innovation Lab teamed up to gain an improved understanding of the underlying factors contributing to higher COVID-19 transmission rates seen in Hispanic and Latino individuals in California. The study used Tracing Health contact tracing data, network analysis, and inferential statistics to better understand how factors like ethnicity, household size, and occupation influence a person’s network size, which is closely tied to COVID-19 transmission.

Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Screening in Rural Northern California: Exploring Provider Perspectives and Experiences

Through key informant interviews, this practice paper explores experiences regarding ACE screening from the perspective of Medi-Cal pediatric and family practice providers in rural Northern California in order to identify and understand barriers and facilitators in the implementation of ACE screening and best practices for trauma-informed care in the region. Supported by the California ACEs Aware Initiative, this research focuses on the six counties participating in PHIL’s Northern ACEs Collaborative (NAC), a multisector collaborative of 28 agencies working in Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Shasta, Tehama, and Trinity counties.

Health Impact in Five Years (HI-5): Lessons from the Field

The CDC Foundation, in partnership with CDC and with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, collaborated with PHIL and Anderson Smith Consulting on an exploratory project to identify and understand underlying factors that lead to successful implementation of two HI-5 CWIs: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and introduction or expansion of public transportation systems. Read the report to learn more.

Participatory Leadership for Community Inclusion

The Population Health Innovation Lab is thrilled to share its approach, methods, lessons learned, and outcomes resulting from a multi-year effort to build a Community of Practice focused on community engagement and inclusion in California.

Spotlight on Community Engagement: Live Healthy Napa County

Live Healthy Napa County (LHNC) works to promote and protect the health and wellbeing of every member of its community. Through the Art of Hosting Training and Community of Practice, PHIL helped LHNC to reimagine community engagement and take tangible steps to “organize with—instead of for—its residents,” which involved understanding, integrating, and empowering residents. See the spotlight for more on LHNC.

Spotlight on Community Engagement: Long Beach, CA

All Children Thrive Long Beach (ACT) is an ACH enabling systems transformation in the City of Long Beach to ensure that “all children and families are loved, healthy, learning, thriving, and succeeding.” Through the Art of Hosting Training and Community of Practice, PHIL helped ACT learn more about authentic and effective community engagement. ACT has since empowered parents to become decision-making partners, with 7 parents becoming active Steering Committee members. See the spotlight for more on ACT.

Spotlight on Community Engagement: West Sacramento, CA

The West Sacramento ACH is currently focused on decreasing the disproportionately high rates of heart disease among its approximately 53,000 residents. Through the Art of Hosting Training and Community of Practice, PHIL helped West Sacramento’s Health Education Council (HEC) to effectively engage residents from a strengths perspective. This work resulted in HEC identifying and collaborating with 12 West Sacramento key ‘community connectors’ to establish 3 key focus areas to help impact heart disease rates. See the spotlight for more on West Sacramento.

Vermont ACH Peer Learning Lab Report

PHIL partnered with the State of Vermont and Vermont ACH sites to co-create the Peer Learning Lab, which supported teams from 10 communities statewide to test ACH implementation while increasing community capacity and readiness across the 9 Core Elements. This work included utilizing in-person and distance learning methods to support peer learning, as well as community facilitation to support each community’s development over a span of eight months. See the report to learn more.

Tools & Guides

Three Steps to a Healthy Heart Community: A Toolkit for Change Through Collective Action 

The Population Health Innovation Lab partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to explore and identify effective strategies to support collaboration among change agents in business, public health, healthcare, and community organizations in the implementation of evidence-based strategies to improve hypertension control from the CDC’s 6 | 18 Initiative. The interactive Toolkit for Change was informed by interviews with key informants from the business sector, health plans, healthcare providers, and nonprofit organizations and is a starting place for those interested in making an impact on their community’s heart health.   

Powering Change: Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Together Curriculum

This practical, comprehensive, interactive curriculum supports cross-sector alignment and is for health-focused multisector collaboratives (MSCs) such as Accountable Communities of/for Health (ACH) backbone staff or partners, and new or existing collaboratives. This curriculum also helps you to operationalize the development of effective MSCs, allows you to nurture a sustainable culture, and improves co-creation of solutions with your partners.

Toolbox for Measuring Cross-Sector Alignment

The Toolbox for Measuring Cross-Sector Alignment includes resources developed by the Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL) and others for measuring aligning across sectors. If you need support in measuring success in your aligning efforts, or just aren’t sure where to start, these resources may be able to help.

Measurement Toolbox Overview

Accountable Communities for Health Start Up Guide

This ACH Start Up Guide is a result of a need for change in population health approaches and best practices that have emerged from the field. It is filled with methods, practices, tools and a general framework that may be applied to a variety of changes happening within any community. The intent is to make this guide available for use by local leaders who want to operate as an Accountable Community for Health (ACH).

ACH Resource Inventory

This resource inventory is organized in collaboration with the California Accountable Communities for Health Initiative (CACHI) milestone goals and expected outcomes. Includes examples created by CACHI, toolkits, PowerPoint presentations, and more. The copy shown here is a preview of the full inventory.

Time to Transform: Adaptive Approaches for Population Health

PHIL and Northwest Center for Public Health Practice collaborated on the Learning Laboratory project to help collaboratives form a community of practice with a shared purpose, a common language, and common tools and resources at their disposal. Through this work, collaboratives reframed complex challenges as opportunities, which helped to continue building capacity for additional Learning Laboratories and expand this community of practice to realize the goals of the Public Health 3.0 model. See the report for more.

Web Discussions

We bring together experts on multisector collaboratives (MSCs) to explore population health issues and evidenced based research and methodologies. We also discuss innovative, sustainable solutions to improve health, well-being, and equity. Visit our PHIL YouTube and the PHIL Events page for videos, slides, and more.

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