Dataset Information

Factors related to public health data sharing between local and state health departments.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Public health organizations increasingly face the need to be able to share data among themselves and ultimately with other providers. We examined what factors contribute to public health organizations' data exchange capabilities.

Data sources

National Association of County and City Health Officials' 2008 National Profile of Local Health Departments survey was linked to the Association of State and Territorial Health Official's 2007 Profile of State Public Health Survey.

Study design

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of organizational factors associated with gaps in data sharing between state health agencies (SHAs) and local health departments (LHDs) in the areas of childhood immunizations, vital records, and reportable conditions.

Data collection

Based on reported information system (IS) capabilities, we created a binary variable that measured whether bidirectional data sharing was structurally possible between an LHD and its respective SHA.

Principal findings

The proportion of LHDs experiencing a data sharing gap was 34.0 percent for immunizations, 69.8 percent for vital records, and 81.8 percent for reportable conditions. Increased SHA technological capacity and size reduced the odds of gaps.

Conclusions

Improving the IS capabilities of public health agencies may be the key to their remaining relevant in the currently evolving health care system.

SUBMITTER: Vest JR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3925408 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Factors related to public health data sharing between local and state health departments.

Vest Joshua R JR Issel L Michele LM

Health services research 20131221 1 Pt 2

<h4>Objective</h4>Public health organizations increasingly face the need to be able to share data among themselves and ultimately with other providers. We examined what factors contribute to public health organizations' data exchange capabilities.<h4>Data sources</h4>National Association of County and City Health Officials' 2008 National Profile of Local Health Departments survey was linked to the Association of State and Territorial Health Official's 2007 Profile of State Public Health Survey.< ...[more]

PMID: 24359636

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Project description:Forty one percent of local health departments in the U.S. serve jurisdictions with populations of 25,000 or less. Researchers, policymakers, and advocates have long questioned how to strengthen public health systems in smaller municipalities. Cross-jurisdictional sharing may increase quality of service, access to resources, and efficiency of resource use.To characterize perceived strengths and challenges of independent and comprehensive sharing approaches, and to assess cost, quality, and breadth of services provided by independent and sharing health departments in Connecticut (CT) and Massachusetts (MA).We interviewed local health directors or their designees from 15 comprehensive resource-sharing jurisdictions and 54 single-municipality jurisdictions in CT and MA using a semi-structured interview. Quantitative data were drawn from closed-ended questions in the semi-structured interviews; municipal demographic data were drawn from the American Community Survey and other public sources. Qualitative data were drawn from open-ended questions in the semi-structured interviews.The findings from this multistate study highlight advantages and disadvantages of two common public health service delivery models - independent and shared. Shared service jurisdictions provided more community health programs and services, and invested significantly more ($120 per thousand (1K) population vs. $69.5/1K population) on healthy food access activities. Sharing departments had more indicators of higher quality food safety inspections (FSIs), and there was a non-linear relationship between cost per FSI and number of FSI. Minimum cost per FSI was reached above the total number of FSI conducted by all but four of the jurisdictions sampled. Independent jurisdictions perceived their governing bodies to have greater understanding of the roles and responsibilities of local public health, while shared service jurisdictions had fewer staff per 1,000 population.There are trade-offs with sharing and remaining independent. Independent health departments serving small jurisdictions have limited resources but strong local knowledge. Multi-municipality departments have more resources but require more time and investment in governance and decision-making. When making decisions about the right service delivery model for a given municipality, careful consideration should be given to local culture and values. Some economies of scale may be achieved through resource sharing for municipalities?<25,000 population.

Project description:The public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated stakeholders from diverse disciplines and institutions to establish new collaborations to produce informed public health responses to the disease. Wastewater-based epidemiology for COVID-19 grew quickly during the pandemic and required the rapid implementation of such collaborations. The objective of this article is to describe the challenges and results of new relationships developed in Detroit, MI, USA among a medical school and an engineering college at an academic institution (Wayne State University), the local health department (Detroit Health Department), and an environmental services company (LimnoTech) to utilize markers of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, in wastewater for the goal of managing COVID-19 outbreaks. Our collaborative team resolved questions related to sewershed selection, communication of results, and public health responses and addressed technical challenges that included ground-truthing the sewer maps, overcoming supply chain issues, improving the speed and sensitivity of measurements, and training new personnel to deal with a new disease under pandemic conditions. Recognition of our complementary roles and clear communication among the partners enabled city-wide wastewater data to inform public health responses within a few months of the availability of funding in 2020, and to make improvements in sensitivity and understanding to be made as the pandemic progressed and evolved. As a result, the outbreaks of COVID-19 in Detroit in fall and winter 2021-2022 (corresponding to Delta and Omicron variant outbreaks) were tracked in 20 sewersheds. Data comparing community- and hospital-associated sewersheds indicate a one- to two-week advance warning in the community of subsequent peaks in viral markers in hospital sewersheds. The new institutional relationships impelled by the pandemic provide a good basis for continuing collaborations to utilize wastewater-based human and pathogen data for improving the public health in the future.

Dataset Information

Factors related to public health data sharing between local and state health departments.

Objective

Data sources

Study design

Data collection

Principal findings

Conclusions

Publications

Factors related to public health data sharing between local and state health departments.

Similar Datasets

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