Making Meaningful Community Health Data Publicly Available

Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest non-profit integrated health care delivery system serving over 10 million members in seven regions, with 38 hospital facilities, whose mission is to “provide quality, affordable health care and to improve the health of our members and communities.” 

Kaiser Permanente provides significant community benefit (CB) to our communities through a range of investments and programs, developed in response to community needs identified through Community Health Needs Assessments, as well as system wide needs.  Our approach includes making public data widely available, free, useful for community health providers and community residents to understand their communities and move to action to improve community health.

To this end, KP has focused on 1) streamlining access to and interpretation of publicly available data and 2) supporting innovative data resources to inform targeted interventions and research.  Highlights of resources supported by KP include: 

1) AskCHIS Neighborhood Edition --provides free access to modeled health estimates at granular levels of geography (going from zip code, to city, county, and legislative district). It primarily uses data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), combined with outside data sources (population and contextual data) to provide health information. 

KP has provided core funding to CHIS for over a decade and is proud to join several California based health foundations to support this important and unique resource. 

2)  Kaiser Permanente worked with the University of Missouri's Center for Applied Research and Environmental Systems (CARES) to develop a free public data platform, chna.org/kp.  The website provides a core set of data on health of populations and communities, and a robust mapping and report generation capacity.  The data uses a population health framework to include a core set of approximately 150 indicators on health outcomes, health behaviors, physical environment and social and economic factors.  Data is provided from national and state sources on as granular a level as available.    The website also provides access to thousands of additional data layers from national and state level sources. Developed in 2012, this platform has made the needs assessment process more efficient, freeing up resources to focus on dialogue, discernment and action planning instead of conducting data analysis. Recent enhancements include a method for indexing potential health needs.  Additional indicators are also included on climate change, mental health and social non-medical needs.

These resources are used by a wide array of users including non profit hospitals undertaking CHNAs, public health departments as they assess community health needs, and  nonprofit community based organizations use the platform to identify health needs an to support program development and grant proposals.