Evaluating Health Care-Community Collaborations: Implications and Recommendations for the Field

The health care sector is working toward engaging communities to directly address population health, including childhood obesity prevention. Exploring the integration of clinic-community programs and evaluating these initiatives is vital for moving childhood obesity prevention efforts forward.

On November 10, NCCOR is hosting part three of a three-part Connect & Explore webinar series on Evaluating Health Care-Community Collaborations. The webinar will feature groundbreaking research examining hospitals’ community benefit activities to improve healthy food access, reduce risk of obesity and diet-related disease, and promote healthier food systems in their communities.

Presenters from Health Care Without Harm, an environmental health advocacy organization with over 1,000 member hospitals in the U.S., will discuss findings from a recent pilot study conducted in Massachusetts as well as a current national study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation.

As part of NCCOR’s effort to evaluate health care-community collaborations, the webinar will also feature an overview of the newly released white paper, “Evaluating Community-Clinical Engagement in Childhood Obesity: Implications and Recommendations for the Field.” The white paper, a product of a 2015 NCCOR workshop, includes a logic model and metrics to evaluate health care-community engagement efforts, both of which will be featured during the webinar. The white paper and a downloadable version of the logic model and metrics are available on the NCCOR website.

Connect & Explore gives you the chance to hear from leading experts on this pressing issue. Learn how communities and health care systems can effectively engage in obesity prevention efforts and how these initiatives can be evaluated for success.

Join us on Thursday, November 10, at 1 p.m. ET, for the one-hour event. Guest speakers include:

• Emma Sirois, MA and Susan Bridle-Fitzpatrick, PhD, from Health Care Without Harm. Ms. Sirois and Dr. Bridle-Fitzpatrick will present the Healthy Food in Health Care program’s multifaceted approach to engaging the health care sector to promote healthy, resilient food systems for community health. They will share findings from two community benefit research studies—a recent study in Massachusetts and a current national study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Both studies examine how tax-exempt hospitals include healthy food access and diet-related disease in their community health needs assessments and community health implementation strategies and how nutrition and obesity-related community benefit programs are evaluated.
• Brook Belay, MD, MPH and Daniel Kidder, PhD, from the Centers for Disease Control. Drs. Belay and Kidder will share how the logic model and metrics for evaluating health care-community engagement initiatives were developed and how they can be modified to fit many different evaluation efforts.

Learn More! Meet NCCOR at APHA from October 29 to November 2, 2016. There will be copies of the “Evaluating Community-Clinical Engagement in Childhood Obesity: Implications and Recommendations for the Field” Executive Summary and Logic Model at the booth. We hope to meet many of you there and discuss NCCOR’s work on this and many other issues relevant to childhood obesity!

You must register to receive webinar access. The event is free, but attendance is limited, so tell a colleague and register today!

Please consider sharing this information on your social networks using the hashtag #ConnectExplore. We will also be live tweeting the event, so be sure to follow the conversation at @NCCOR. For those who cannot attend, the webinar will be recorded and archived on www.nccor.org.