Category Archives: community health

Evaluating Health Impact Assessment and the Role of Funding for Local Health Departments

By Ali Aslam, NACCHO Environmental Health Intern

This story originally ran in NACCHO’s Healthy People, Healthy Places blog.

In June 2017, NACCHO released a new report titled Evaluation of Technical Assistance for Local Health Departments. This report is part of NACCHO’s ongoing evaluation of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) at local health departments to examine implementation practices, common challenges, and resource gaps. The report provides practical recommendations for local health departments administering HIA and national organizations that support HIA at the local level. NACCHO’s evaluation showed that funding and staff time were the most significant barriers for local health departments conducting HIA. Furthermore, local health departments with HIA funding were shown to prioritize HIA activities while having a higher capacity than their non-funded counterparts. Continue reading →

NACCHO Annual 2017 Sharing Session Recap: Community Partnerships Help Tri-County Health Department Curb Prescription Drug Misuse

This entry features an interview with NACCHO Annual 2017 presenter and Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator for the Tri-County Health Department in Colorado, Steven A. Martinez, MA. His session, “Tri-County Overdose Prevention Partnership: A Community-Led, Local Health Department-Facilitated, Collaborative Effort,” described the importance of partnerships to address prescription drug misuse in local communities. Below he shares his health department’s process for convening partnerships and assessing, planning, and implementing collaborative strategies. Continue reading →

A Look Inside the NACCHO Health and Disability Fellowship Program

Evelyn Arana, left,Tara Lutz, right.

NACCHO is currently seeking two graduate students to become the newest Health and Disability fellows. To provide potential applicants an inside look into the fellowship experience, NACCHO Health and Disability Program Analyst, Sara Lyons, interviewed the program’s two outgoing fellows. Tara Lutz and Evelyn Arana began their fellowship journey last fall. Below they share how the yearlong experience helped propel them into the next phase of their public health careers. View the fellowship flyer for more information about the program. Continue reading →

Shifting Internal Policies and Systems to Create Breastfeeding Continuity of Care

By Carmen Vergara, RN, MPH (ESPERANZA HEALTH CENTERS) and Harumi Reis-Reilly, MS, CNS, CHES, IBCLC (NACCHO)  

Esperanza Health Centers, a former grantee of NACCHO’s Breastfeeding Initiative, is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) on the Southwest side of Chicago. The main population served is predominately low-income and Latino, and families in Esperanza’s service area experience significant economic, educational, and health inequities. Over 70% of area residents live 200% below the poverty level. Esperanza’s main services are adult primary care, pediatrics, prenatal care, and behavioral health. Additional public health services include programs related to children’s weight management, diabetes management, and physical activity. Continue reading →

Tobacco Cessation for Cancer Survivors: A Resource Guide for Local Health Departments

Local health departments (LHDs) play a vital role in minimizing the impact of cancer in their communities. NACCHO supports LHDs in planning, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based cancer prevention and control strategies to improve population health. With that said, NACCHO has released of Tobacco Cessation for Cancer Survivors: A Resource Guide for Local Health Departments. This guide details the importance of tobacco cessation for cancer survivors and features recommendations on how local health departments can use existing resources to link cessation services to cancer survivors. This resource guide was created through collaboration with American Cancer Society under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cooperative agreement DP1315 National Support to Enhance Implementation of Comprehensive Cancer Control Activities.

Download Tobacco Cessation for Cancer Survivors: A Resource Guide for Local Health Departments from the NACCHO website today.

National Child Abuse Prevention Month: Building Community, Building Hope

By Margaret Carr, NACCHO Senior Program Assistant

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) encourages local health departments (LHDs) to engage their communities throughout the month of April in promoting child abuse prevention efforts. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and the theme this year is Building Community, Building Hope. Continue reading →

Curbing Opioid Overdose Using Programmatic and Geospatial Data

By Kate Lena, MPH, Linkages to Care Coordinator, AHOPE Needle Exchange Program, Boston Public Health Commission

This is an excerpt from the 2017 NACCHO Exchange Winter Issue on opioids.

Opioid misuse is highly stigmatized and criminalized, making people who inject opioids an especially hard-to-reach, high-risk population and hampering public health surveillance efforts to understand the timing, circumstances, and proximate causes of overdose events. Boston Public Health Commission’s needle exchange program, AHOPE, has spent more than a decade working to overcome those obstacles. Launched in 2006, AHOPE—Massachusetts’s first community Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) pilot program—distributes harm reduction supplies to people who inject drugs.1 Continue reading →