Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health: Implementing Policies That Drive Change

In February 2010, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute released the County Health Rankings: Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health—the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states. The Rankings measure overall health for each county by looking at health outcomes and factors that affect people's health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment.

The County Health Rankings are a “call to action” for communities to work together to develop programs and policies that address the multiple influences on health. Public health leaders are uniquely positioned to turn these reports into action in their communities – actions that address social inequalities and improve health for the entire community. Many public health leaders are already planning to use these reports to build multi-sector partnerships, to raise awareness about public health and the multiple influences on health, and to advocate for new programs and policies to improve health.

This session will focus on how communities can use the county health rankings to advocate for laws and policies that improve health. Speakers will provide an overview of rankings, but will focus on real examples of policy-change efforts following the inaugural release of the rankings. The session will provide attendees with recommendations on how to turn the reports into a policy change effort and will outline existing and new resources for communities to use in building multi-sector partnerships to implement policy change efforts.