Emerging Trends in Public Health
Sharing Session - 60 Minutes
Debra Dekker, PhD
Director of Evaluation
NACCHO
Debra Dekker, PhD
Director of Evaluation
NACCHO
How do local health departments make the right decisions when it comes to turning data into action?
This session on NACCHO’s premier studies, the National Profile of Local Health Departments (Profile) and Forces of Change, will help you make sense of the data and how you can use it to tell the story of your health department.
A census-type study of nearly every local health department in the United States, the Profile is fielded once every three years. The Profile is designed to reveal an in-depth and accurate description of LHD infrastructure and practice, describing how funding, staffing, governance, and activities of LHDs vary across the country. The Forces of Change study is fielded on those years that Profile is not conducted and pertains to public health topics that are relevant and popular for the current year. Two questions that consistently arise from LHDs to NACCHO’s Research and Evaluation team are 1) How do I make sense of all the data and results; and 2) How do I use the data to inform policies and practices at my LHD and in my community?
Join NACCHO’s R&E team as it discusses its approach to data analysis and interpretation, along with various products available to help you use Profile and Forces of Change data at your LHD. You will gain a comprehensive understanding of our nation’s current local public health infrastructure, and how you can use data from these studies to advance your work and health department’s own profile in your community.