The City of Nashua Division of Public Health and Community Services (DPHCS) underwent transformational change with an Emerging Leaders in Public Health grant. One of the goals was to strengthen data collection and analysis throughout the public health region. DPHCS worked closely with the Public Health Advisory Council to 1) strengthen data-sharing among community-based organizations, 2) collect appropriate internal, community-based organization, state-wide, and national data on a consistent basis and utilize this data to drive Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) development and implementation, and 3) utilize community-based organization and state-wide data to identify CHIP initiatives and inform public health programming. To achieve these goals and strengthen data collection and analysis across community organizations, DPHCS needed to generate buy-in from community-based organizations, utilize a data collection timeline and protocol to ensure that community-based organizations and the state were providing DPHCS with consistent, useful data, and analyze community-based organization, statewide, and internal data on a consistent basis. Participants will discuss how to use this data transformational process in a way that it can be replicated in their region. The challenges associated with generating buy-in, ensuring consistent access to data, and conducting consistent data analysis will be explored, along with the solutions that DPHCS utilized.

Presenters will discuss how DPHCS worked to strengthen data sharing among community-based organizations, how to generate buy-in from community-based organizations, and how to utilize a data-sharing platform to house a Community Health Assessment. Attendees will be engaged in conversation about how to encourage community members to interact with community data, the possible unintended consequences of sharing data, and how to avoid sharing and collecting outdated and redundant data.