The Role And Potential Of Communities In Population Health Improvement

The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement is the summary of a workshop held by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Population Health Improvement in April 2014 that featured invited speakers from community groups that have taken steps to improve the health of their communities. Speakers from communities across the United States discussed the potential roles of communities for improving population health. The workshop focused on youth organizing, community organizing or other types of community participation, and partnerships between community and institutional actors. This report explores the roles and potential of the community as leaders, partners, and facilitators in transforming the social and environmental conditions that shape health and well-being at the local level.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

On June 16, 2016, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement held a workshop at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, New York, to explore the influence of trauma and violence on communities. The workshop highlighted examples of community-based organizations using trauma-informed approaches to treat violence and build safe and healthy communities. Presentations showcased examples that can serve as models in different sectors and communities and shared lessons learned. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the event.

The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.

Spread, Scale, and Sustainability in Population Health is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Population Health Improvement in December 2014 to discuss the spread, scale, and sustainability of practices, models, and interventions for improving health in a variety of inter-organizational and geographical contexts. This report explores how users measure whether their strategies of spread and scale have been effective and discusses how to increase the focus on spread and scale in population health.

The challenges of addressing health disparities, the ethical imperative to include stakeholders in research, and the slow translation of research evidence into practice are all driving a movement towards more community-based and participatory approaches to research. Researching Health Together brings together authors who have produced innovative methods or implemented projects focused on different stages of the research process, from question development to evaluation and translation. Editor Emily B. Zimmerman gathers exemplary new methods and projects into one place for the benefit of students designing research projects and proposals, those learning stakeholder-engaged methods, and those involved in implementing and funding stakeholder-engaged projects. Each chapter addresses: how engagement was conceptualized, organized, and implemented; how engagement was evaluated; impacts on processes and outcomes of the project; and facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned. The book serves as a core textbook for courses in community-based health research at the graduate level. "[This book] focuses only on translational health research and expands beyond CBPR to include practice-based research networks (PBRN) and stakeholder-engaged research within health systems.... The overall strengths of this book are its in-depth and almost inspirational focus on CBPR methodology, be those actual geographic or cultural communities or disease-based communities.... Researching Health Together, in its first edition, is a necessary bridge from the theory of participatory health research to its application across research environments." - Journal of Participatory Research Methods