Local Data Sharing to Improve Population Health: Learnings from a National Meeting

By Christina Becker October 29, 2019

Share this page

APHSA joined hundreds of community stakeholders in attending the All In: Data for Community Health National Meeting. All In: Data for Community Health is a learning network of communities that are testing exciting new ways to systematically improve community health outcomes through multi-sector partnerships working to share data. Communities are improving population health and well-being through partnerships that bring diverse sectors together to unleash the full potential of their data. The third annual All In National Meeting was designed to lift up the hard-won knowledge and practical lessons from these pioneering local data sharing initiatives to accelerate our progress toward improved health equity for all.

We attended a plethora of great sessions, including:

A 3-hour deep dive on network leadership, which focused on how to maximize our involvement in multiple networks without getting information and connection overload;
Two case study deep-dives from Vermont and Allegheny County on analyzing county and state-level data to impact policy to reduce overdose deaths. Vermont has started to conduct early ROI analysis on its MAT and care coordination work, and Allegheny presented its analytics dashboard; and
A facilitated conversation around the difference between “health-related social needs” and the social determinants of health. Although attendees from various sectors had slightly different definitions they were working off of, one suggested good source for starting to streamline our definitions was from the Milbank Quarterly, Meanings and Misunderstandings: A Social Determinants of Health Lexicon for Health Care Systems.