ASTHO developed a tool for use by state Medicaid and public health agency staff to help them determine whether their agencies want to form a team to implement evidence-based interventions identified in the CDC’s 6|18 Initiative: Accelerating Evidence into Action. State teams can use this tool to collect information on current programs, consider 6|18’s alignment with current health priorities, and identify important stakeholders to engage.
This issue brief provides an overview of the Vermont Falls Prevention Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative, developed by ASTHO in partnership with CDC and the Vermont Department of Health (VDH). Four counties and affiliated hospitals participated in the learning collaborative, including Bennington (Southwestern Vermont Medical Center), Newport (North Country Hospital), Burlington (University of Vermont Medical Center), and Lebanon (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire). This brief also describes the counties’ progress following the project’s implementation, and provides strategies and lessons learned that other states and territories can use to promote and implement interventions to reduce older adult falls.
This meeting report highlights contributions from several key experts on barriers and opportunities related to improving the entirety and specificity of drug information on death certificates for overdose deaths. The report includes information on the death investigation and death certificate completion processes, key priorities for improving drug specificity on death certificates, and short and long-term strategies to addressing this issue.
This quick reference guide, written in collaboration with the National Organizations of State Offices of Rural Health, outlines some of the major social determinants of health, which research shows has a large impact on health status. The document is aimed at familiarizing state offices of rural health and state and territorial health officials with the impacts of social determinants of health on rural populations. The guide outlines key interplays between health status and the social issues of housing, transportation, education, and food insecurity, and provides targeted resources and state examples to help public health officials learn more and take action on these significant drivers of health status, outcomes, and costs.
ASTHO has developed “Territorial Public Health Performance and Accreditation 101: A Resource and Guide for Territorial Health Agencies. This guide is designed to provide THAs with a simple framework for improving their territorial public health systems’ overall performance, as well as the health of the communities they serve.