The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #46310

Beth Cohen, MPH¹, William M. Sappenfield, MD, MPH², Vera Haynatzka, PhD³, and Patrick S. Simpson, MPH³. (1) National Association of County and City Health Officials, 1100 17th St., NW 2nd floor, Washington, DC 20036, 202-783-5550, bcohen@naccho.org, (2) Reproductive Health, CDC, 4770 Buford Hwy K-23, Atlanta, GA 30341, (3) Department of Pediatrics, CityMatCH at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, 982170 University Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-2170

Purpose: To assess the services/activities related to women's health in local health departments (LHDs) including unmet needs, challenges, capacity, and activities.

Methods: NACCHO and CityMatCH joined efforts to survey LHD directors on national MCH priorities including women's health. LHDs were randomly sampled based on CityMatCH membership and jurisdiction size. All CityMatCH members were surveyed.

Results: Of the 825 surveys mailed, 313 (38%) LHDs responded. Response rate varied by CityMatCH membership because of differences in incentives: 83% for members and 28% for non-members. Results of the survey were:

--Approximately one quarter of respondents indicated that women's health is a very high priority for their leadership and another 36% ranked it as a high priority.

--Local health leaders feel that the agency leadership (66%), integration of services (54%), and community assessment (52%) are the areas with the most capacity to address women's health issues.

--Access to care, chronic diseases, and health services are the top three unmet needs noted by many local health leaders.

--Community partners most frequently cited as having a medium to high level of collaboration with LHDs include state health departments (76%), hospitals (57%), and the medical community (54%).

--The activities most likely to be completed by LHDs related to women's health include needs assessments (53%), receiving special grants (38%), and developing strategic plans (34%).

Conclusions: Overall, women's health is a high priority for the LHDs surveyed, but their current capacity in certain areas such as surveillance, assurance, and evaluation is not sufficient to carry out essential public health functions.

Learning Objectives: The objectives of this presentation are to

• Provide an overview of the unmet needs, challenges and priority levels of local health departments related to women's health
• Identify the capacity of local health departments to perform activities such as community assessment, quality assurance, coalition development, strategic planning, etc. in relation to women's health
• Discuss the types of and prevalence of certain women's health-related clinical and population-based services/activities offered by local health departments
• Highlight a few model women's health programs or initiatives within local health departments

Keywords: Women's Health, Health Departments

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.