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

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

"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.

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California's Healthy Places Index→

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California's Healthy Places Index

The California Healthy Places Index (HPI) is a powerful new tool, developed by the Public Health Alliance of Southern California (Alliance) in partnership with the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health, that can be used to explore and change those community conditions that predict life expectancy. The purpose of the HPI is to prioritize public and private investments, resources and programs.

The California Healthy Places Index tool can be found here.

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Partnering to Catalyze Comprehensive Wellness

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An Actionable Framework for Health Care and Public Health Collaboration: 

Health professionals working to protect and improve health in communities and across the nation realize that none of our distinct systems – not health care, public health, nor social services – is fully equipped to accomplish its mission alone. There is mounting recognition that to truly improve health outcomes in the U.S. and curb chronic diseases there must be an interdisciplinary, coordinated, and cross-sector approach to address acute conditions and the upstream social factors that contribute to poor health outcomes. This approach requires transformation of the way the health and human service systems traditionally interact.

In pursuit of this goal, members of the PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP FORUM (PHLF) and HEALTH CARE TRANSFORMATION TASK FORCE (HCTTF) developed a framework to help catalyze and facilitate collaborative working relationships between the public health and health care sectors. Such partnerships are an essential component of the “comprehensive community wellness approach,” one in which effective, collaborative relationships across sectors ensure more seamless care and prevention services for all. Under this approach, public health, health care, and social service and community organizations intentionally build high-functioning partnerships to address health needs in their communities, and invest in the time, staff, information platforms, and oversight structures needed to sustain them.  The framework outlines essential elements of collaboration and presents key tactics and strategies for forming or reshaping effective partnerships.

Public Health Leadership Forum | June 13, 2018

This piece appears in Health Care Transformation’ Task Force’s Transformation Resources Page.

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