Communities Count: Tracking local social determinants of health

Communities Count is a collaborative effort among public and private organizations to report on health and well-being of people and communities in King County in order to identify strengths and stimulate action. Through an iterative process involving residents and technical experts, a core set of indicators were developed. Each indicator highlights a social, economic, health, environmental or cultural condition. While some of the indicators are based on routinely-collected data, many others, particularly those reflecting social determinants of health required new primary data collection. Examples include: income inequity, neighborhood social cohesion, freedom from discrimination, parent involvement in child's learning and perceived neighborhood safety. Four Communities Count reports have been released since 2000 that have provided trends in health and well-being of King County residents and communities in six domains: basic needs and social well-being, positive development through life stages, safety and health, community strength, natural and built environment, arts and culture. Reports include variations by place within the county and inequities by race, ethnicity, gender, income, and age. A qualitative research theme is selected for each report as a way to illuminate persistent inequities by income, race/ethnicity and place. The presentation will: 1) provide examples of selected indicators and methods to gather data 2) present trends in inequities across indicators by income, race/ethnicity and place; 3) describe steps taken to develop a broad funding coalition with public and private partners; and 4) examine how community-level information has been used in King County to inform community and policy change, philanthropic investments and government performance measures.