Issue Introduction: Evidence-based tools are necessary for advocates and policymakers to raise awareness of child health issues; however, translating data and legislative information into an easy-to-understand and accessible format is difficult. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the development and dissemination of evidence-based tools and resources to advance child health policy decisions.

Evidence to Inform Program: This project is informed by the RPC translational model, using an Agenda Setting Theory framework.

Program Activities: Texas has an unusual legislative session that meets for 140 days every other year. During the 2019 session, 10,878 bills were filed, making it challenging to track legislation relevant to child health. A Texas Legislative Bill Tracker was created in 2013 to provide an accessible, organized tool for researchers/policy advocates to identify child health legislative actions. Timely bill status updates and links to relevant resources are provided during session. The Tracker expanded in 2019 with segmented topics: early childhood education, built environment, food policy, maternal health, school/after-school care, obesity, tobacco/e-cigarettes, oral health. Child health-related bill filing increased per session (58 bills in 2013; 101 bills in 2019). The 2019 Tracker website received 9,000+ unique pageviews between the start of bill filing and session adjournment.

Texas Child Health Status Reports were created in 2018 to provide abbreviated, digestible reports highlighting state-level child health disparities and risk factors for advocates/policymakers. Reports use data from the Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) surveillance system at the state, Public Health Regions, and border/non-border levels. An advisory committee guided topics, design, and dissemination. Six Reports were released through website, email, social media, event tabling, and partner promotion. To date, 2,849 pageviews were generated by 1,996 unique individuals to the Report webpages.

Conclusions: Both the Bill Tracker and Child Health Status Reports serve as evidence-based research tools, and have led to additional requests for data, collaboration, and expert testimony. Initial outcomes indicate these tools address a need for state policymakers.

Practice Recommendations: Translating key research findings into usable formats, such as fact sheets or online databases, can provide resources for policymakers to make evidence-based decisions to impact child health policy.