Building Healthy Communities and Increasing Public Health Funding: Partnership Stories from Wisconsin

Multi-sector, public-private partnerships have become a central component of community health improvement efforts across the state of Wisconsin. The Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute – an innovative workforce development program of the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health – offers teams representing local or statewide partnerships an intensive, year-long program of on-site and distance continuing education to build public health and collaborative leadership skills. Participants in the Community Teams Program successfully build partnerships across sectors, including business, schools, parks and recreation, non-profit, academia, health care, local government and public health. Through collaborative leadership, project planning, implementation and evaluation skills gained through participation in the program, teams build community partnerships to launch initiatives such as worksite farmer's markets and increased opportunities for physical activity and improved nutrition in schools, and take on complex public health challenges such as mental illness, alcohol abuse and disparities in access to cancer care, among others. In addition, 60% of teams in the first two years of the program report that their participation in the program helped them obtain grant funding for their public health initiatives. In this presentation, local team members will tell their stories. They will discuss their partnership building efforts, the keys to their successes and the challenges they confronted, and continue to confront, in their ongoing journeys to improve community health.