Season's Greetings from NCIPH

It’s that time of year again – the holiday season is upon us and we can see the New Year fast approaching. At NCIPH, it’s both a time to celebrate a successful year and look forward to new developments in 2017. We recently released our 2016 Annual Report, “Our People, Our Stories,” which details the work we’ve done this past year in technical assistance, training, and engagement.

In this edition of Impact, we share the innovative success of our 34th Annual School Nurse Conference this past October. We highlight a recent community health assessment project as well as the first phase of an exciting project with Carolinas HealthCare System. Finally, with an eye to the New Year and all its possibilities, we announce our national role with The Kresge Foundation’s Emerging Leaders in Public Health program.

We hope that you will join our new mailing list to keep updated with our quarterly newsletters and special announcements. We will be at the State Health Director’s Conference in Raleigh January 19-20, where our staff will present “Advocacy for Leaders: Crafting Richer Stories for Public Health,” “Shaping Your Public Health Message Using GIS Mapping of Social Determinants of Health,” and “Planning for a Successful Future of the NC Local Health Department Accreditation Program.”

On February 24th, we’ll be assisting with the 38th Annual Minority Health Conference, which is organized by the Minority Student Caucus at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. This year’s conference is titled “Systems of Power: Recalling our Past, Restructuring our Future.” We will be hosting an exhibit booth at both of these conferences, so please stop by to say hello and learn more about our services. We look forward to seeing you there!

All the best,
Anna Schenck
NCIPH Director and Associate Dean of Public Health Practice

The Kresge Foundation Announces New Initiative for Public Health Leaders

Emerging Leaders in Public Health is a leadership development initiative, supported by The Kresge Foundation, aimed at developing current and future local governmental public health officials to transform their agencies and improve the health of their communities. Selected leaders will embark on an 18-month, action-oriented leadership development experience built around development of a transformational concept. The initiative provides coaching, education and funding for leaders in pairs--one health official and a co-lead from the same agency--who are committed to transforming their agency and their community. We are soliciting interest for the upcoming cohort and the official call for applications will be open January 4-February 20, 2017.  Visit www.Kresge.org/elph for more information or view the full press release here.

School Nurse Conference Encourages Inclusion, Diversity, Professional Excellence

The annual North Carolina School Nurse Conference, held October 12-14 in Greensboro, NC, brought over 500 participants from across North Carolina to participate in plenary sessions, breakout workshops, and networking opportunities. The conference has been organized annually by the North Carolina Institute for Public Health and is the largest conference targeted to school nurses in North Carolina.

“Our conference is a product of a planning committee that includes practicing school nurses who understand the challenges nurses face on a daily basis,” explains NCIPH conference director Avia Mainor. “It brings a rich tradition of creating a networking environment with participants from across North Carolina, while providing the opportunity to update and grow aspects of professional practice. We know school nurses play a vital role in advancing the health of all school-aged children, and the success of North Carolina’s school nurses will lead to healthier and happier children who become healthy functioning adults.”

The two-day conference featured speakers such as the past chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on School Health, Robert Murray, MD, who discussed how nutrition and physical activity support learning, Linda Wolfe of the National Association of School Nurses, who shared innovative ways to use data to make a difference in school nursing, and Ann Nichols, State School Health Nurse Consultant, who led audiences through cutting edge issues in NC school health. The 16 different breakout sessions offered at the conference spanned diverse topics from new legislation surrounding naloxone use in opioid overdoses, developing health leadership skills, special needs of students in foster care, bullying prevention, concussion management, and more.

A highlight of the conference was a plenary session on the final day presented by Clyde “Bud” Harrelson of the UNC School of Education. Harrelson shared vital research on the special challenges faced by LGBTQ students at school and innovative suggestions for improving physical and mental health outcomes for such students. Following the lecture, a panel of experts took audience questions. This panel included Jill Moore, JD, MPH of the UNC School of Government, Ellen Essick PhD, of the NC Department of Public Instruction, and Kimberley Morse, RN, BSN, NCSN, of Iredell-Statesville Schools. Panelists answered questions about legal responsibilities and guidelines for nurses, dealing with school administration, and even shared personal stories about LGBTQ students and allies in their lives.

In presenting these speakers, Mainor emphasized that Harrelson’s keynote and the following panel were inspired by requests from attendees at last year’s conference, noting that, “As events and information move faster we all must keep up. Realizing that health risks and conditions don’t exist in isolation from other issues, we need to discuss these issues in real-world settings, explore new innovations and share successes to drive implementation of new practices.”

NCIPH and Durham County Public Health Conduct Community Health Needs Assessment

Durham CHA volunteers.

NCIPH recently provided support to the Durham County Department of Public Health to identify the most pressing health needs in Durham as part of their 2017 Community Health Assessment (CHA). After receiving training from NCIPH staff on safety, interview techniques, best practices in door-to-door surveys, and the use of NCIPH’s Collect SMART mobile technology, volunteers surveyed residents throughout Durham County over the course of several days in October. 

Survey questions included topics such as: personal and behavioral health, healthcare access and barriers, services needing improvement, and emergency preparedness. Prior to the survey, NCIPH also provided assistance with selecting census tracts to sample using a cluster sampling technique validated by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

A total of 368 interviews were conducted with Durham County residents with the help of volunteers from numerous health agencies in the county. While volunteers learned valuable canvassing skills and gained familiarity with their community, community members were able to give voice to their health concerns and problems. Durham County Public Health, in turn, will be able to use this data to better tailor services and outreach to fit the needs of the community.

NCIPH Launches Pilot of New Tool to Map Social Determinants of Health

Social determinants of health: a big phrase describing the daily fabric of your life. Your place of residence, mode of play, workplace, and worship habits may not seem health-related, but in fact these “upstream” factors not only influence overall quality of life, but also have a significant influence on population health outcomes.

This fall, the North Carolina Institute for Public Health partnered with Carolinas HealthCare System to conduct a Community Health Improvement Plan study to examine the social determinants of health within the healthcare system’s primary service region. Based in Charlotte NC, Carolinas HealthCare System is one of the largest healthcare organizations in the Southeast with more than 900 care locations in North Carolina and South Carolina. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide seamless access to coordinated, high quality healthcare that is closer to where patients live.

For this study, the NCIPH technical assistance staff developed an interactive online map of social determinants of health at the neighborhood level for a 10-county service region. The NCIPH team mapped twelve social determinants of health indicators within three domains (social & neighborhood, economic, and housing & transportation). Data was collected from the American Community Survey five-year estimates and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and mapped using the ESRI Story Map platform. To display neighborhoods in the service area with the highest disparities among the social determinants of health, the NCIPH team created an index by standardizing and averaging all of the indicators within each of the three domains to create an overall z-score.  The result is an interactive web map for Carolinas HealthCare System to use to inform program planning for each of their facilities. More information about this project will be presented at the upcoming January 2017 State Health Directors Conference in Raleigh.

Mapping social determinants of health.

Upcoming NCIPH Trainings

Check out our upcoming training offerings on our website with highlights below.

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