Collaboration: Opportunities

“Housing code enforcement—the local government process of administering and enforcing housing codes designed to ensure safe and habitable housing conditions—is one of the primary strategies for connecting and improving our housing and our health. In this report, we examine how housing code enforcement in Memphis, Tennessee, could prioritize public health as a key outcome and better coordinate with public health agencies, community health nonprofits, and other health care institutions. We explore these potential health impacts in Memphis as a model that other communities can apply and adapt.”

“The Health & Housing Starter Kit is designed to help local institutions take their first steps toward creating bold and innovative health and housing initiatives. The Building Blocks cover a range of issues that local institutions will likely wade through as they start their efforts, and are drawn from themes we pulled from nearly 2 years of field research and interviews with staff at each of our case study sites. These include leadership, financing, how to develop an orientation toward health equity, forming partnerships with communities and other institutions, scaling your work to address population outcomes, developing indicators to understand and evaluate your efforts, and crafting messages to build support.”

“Chronic absenteeism is a critical national problem that puts more than 6.5 million schoolchildren at risk for falling behind academically, dropping out of school and serious long-term health, employment and financial consequences. There is a growing movement among schools, states and the federal government to address the underlying causes of chronic absenteeism. This policy brief takes a close look at the reasons behind chronic absenteeism, its adverse impact on health and life outcomes, and potential solutions.”

“This paper is a product of [the partnership between the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Corporate Citizenship Center (USCCF) and the Action Collaborative on Business Engagement in Building Healthy Communities], exploring the business motivation for investing in community health, the processes involved in that effort, and the challenges stakeholders faced when pursuing these initiatives.”

“This guide is intended to highlight the ways that school needs assessments required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) can be a valuable tool in identifying, understanding and addressing health conditions that contribute to poor academic performance. It provides child advocates, community leaders, school personnel and other key stakeholder groups with the information that they need to convince their state and local education leaders to make health and wellness a significant component of the needs assessment and school improvement process.”

“Child Trends partnered with the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and EMT Associates, Inc. to review relevant state statutes and regulations enacted as of September 2017 and analyze their alignment with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of healthy schools. Findings from this work are compiled in three products to help policymakers and advocates better understand the current landscape and consider the creation of policies that promote healthy schools.”

This webinar, recorded on November 14, 2016 by PHNCI, discusses “the importance of [public health and health care] collaboration and [provides] information about two national initiatives (the newly launched Digital Bridge project and the State Health Values and Strategies program) aimed at improving population health through reforming the delivery of health care services and exchanging information between sectors.”

“Public health and housing professionals know that the health impacts of housing decisions can last decades, affecting residents over their lifetimes and across generations. Health impact assessments (HIAs) provide an opportunity for these sectors to build strong partnerships dedicated to the shared goal of ensuring that housing projects, policies, and programs promote the best possible health and quality of life for residents. This brief provides public health professionals with information about major housing programs and policies, identifies key decision-makers, and discusses how public health professionals can effectively integrate health into housing decisions.”

Howard K. Koh, Former Assistant Secretary for Health, and coauthors discuss how “businesses, together with health and community partners, can promote a culture of health through 4 distinct but interrelated pillars.” These pillars are: consumer health, employee health, community health, and environmental health. Please note that this article is only available with purchase from the publisher.

“For decades, housing professionals, public health officials, and city leaders have recognized the link between people’s homes and their health and well-being. This study examines emerging interventions that integrate housing and health services for low-income people, with a focus on interventions where health care organizations have taken a significant leadership role. Our research pairs over 30 expert interviews with six in-depth case studies to paint a detailed picture of emerging strategies and their potential to be sustained, expanded, and replicated elsewhere. They are all rooted in an idea that is gaining traction among health care leaders across the country: investing in housing is investing in health.”