Massachusetts Population Health Information Tools: Tools for Community Health Needs Assessment and Planning
Document Type
PresentationPublication Date
2017-03-03Keywords
Massachusetts Department of Public Healthtools
data
community-engaged research
Public Health Information Tool (PHIT)
Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) portal
Civic and Community Engagement
Community-Based Research
Community Health and Preventive Medicine
Public HealthTranslational Medical Research
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Overview Staff from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) will conduct a training and discussion on available MDPH data and in-development tools for accessing those data for community engagement, planning and assessment efforts. The workshop will include the sharing of practical information on MDPH data and demonstrations of tools (for those with laptops, hands-on opportunities for data access may be possible). Learning Objectives -To learn about available MDPH data and data tools for community engaged research -To understand possible MDPH roles in community engaged research - To contribute to MDPH data access planning for meeting the needs of groups conducting community engaged research Background In the spring of 2016, a partnership between two Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) bureaus, the Bureau of Environmental Health and the Bureau of Community Health and Prevention, and several MA hospital associations, embarked on a new project to make data more available for the purpose of helping to guide community partners in identifying community health needs and making decisions on resource allocation. The resulting Public Health Information Tool (PHIT) helps respond to two specific mandates requiring regular community needs assessments: (1) the Public Health Accreditation Board’s requirement of certified local health departments and (2) Affordable Care Act’s requirements of non-profit hospitals. The current vision of PHIT will incorporate expanded data and functionality so that it is applicable to local health, community health advocates, and academic institutions, among others. The project allows for the inclusion of many MDPH health indicators, including a focus on social determinants of health and identifying health disparities. PHIT is currently in beta-test mode and is not yet available to the public. However, PHIT is built on the infrastructure for an existing BEH web tool, the Massachusetts Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) portal, which is a web-based data system available to the public. EPHT is part of a national effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make environmental and health data readily available to the public in customizable maps, tables and charts at the county, community and census tract levels. Currently, the EPHT website includes the latest available health data for asthma, birth defects, cancer, carbon monoxide poisoning, childhood lead poisoning, heart attack, heat stress, pediatric diabetes and reproductive outcomes. In addition, Community Profiles for all 351 cities and towns are available that present a compilation of select indicators. EPHT reflects over a decade of program development, which has been easily adapted into the PHIT system. Both EPHT and PHIT will continually evolve to add content, improve performance, and enhance system capabilities to best fit the needs of an expanding array of external stakeholders. To that end, this session not only provides an opportunity to introduce these tools to an interested audience, but also serves as a forum for gathering critical feedback from potential users.DOI
10.13028/vx8g-fp49Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/26695Related Resources
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