In 2002, representatives from the local hospital (Baystate Franklin Medical Center), local government, schools, social services, law enforcement, business, and faith-based organizations convened to address community concerns about substance abuse among the region’s young people. The community effort was spurred by the availability of substantial long-term funding from both the federal government and private sources given to two different agencies. The two agencies, Community Action of the Franklin, Hampshire, and North Quabbin Regions, and the Franklin Regional Council of Governments’ Partnership for Youth, chose to cohost the initiative, with dozens of collaborating partners unified in a regionwide approach. The group adopted the Communities That Care (CTC) process to guide assessment, planning, and implementation of research-tested strategies. CTC is a community change process based on more than 2 decades of research by the University of Washington Social Development Research Group; in randomized trials, CTC has produced results both in achieving high-functioning coalitions and in reducing risky youth behaviors (Hawkins and Catalano, 2005). A core multisectoral group participated in a series of five trainings and created a structure for the coalition. Five local school districts administered a survey to their 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students to assess health behaviors and underlying risk factors, and on that foundation the newly formed Communities That Care Coalition developed its first community action plan.

Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health is astep-by-step guide for building durable coalitions to improvecommunity and public health. This important resource provides an in-depth, analytical, andpractical approach to building, sustaining, and nurturing thesecomplex organizations. Author Frances Dunn Butterfoss includes all the tools forsuccess in collaborative work from a research and practice-basedstance. The book contains useful approaches to the issues,recommendations for action, resources for further study, andexamples from actual coalition work. Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Healthexplores Historical foundations of coalitions and partnerships Principles of collaboration and partnering Benefits and challenges of a coalition approach Coalition frameworks and models Cultivating coalition leadership Roles and responsibilities of coalition staff, leaders, andmembers Communication, decision-making, and problem-solvingmethods Vision, mission, and bylaws Effective marketing Planning for sustainability Approaches to assessment Developing strategic and action plans Implementing coalition strategies in the community Media advocacy, strategies, and tips Participatory coalition evaluation

As a community, aligning efforts across a community to support the safety and well-being of vulnerable and underserved individuals is extraordinarily difficult. These individuals suffer disproportionally from health issues, job loss, a lack of stable housing, high utility costs, substance abuse, and homelessness. In addition to medical care, these individuals often critically need access to community social sector organizations that provide a distinct and complementary set of services, such as housing, food services, emergency utility assistance, and employment assistance. These services are just as vital as healthcare services to these individuals’ long-term health and well-being, with data suggesting that 80–90% of health outcomes can be attributed to factors beyond direct medical intervention. This book proposes a novel approach to the coordination of medicine and social services through the use of people, process, and technology, with the goal being to streamline coordination between medical and Community-Based Organizations and to promote true cross-sector patient and client advocacy. The book is based on the experience of Dallas, TX, which was one of the first metropolitan regions to develop a comprehensive foundation for partnership between a community’s clinical and social sectors using web-based information exchange. In the 5 years since the initial launch, the authors have been able to provide seamless connection, communication, and coordination between healthcare providers and a wide array of community-based social service organizations (a/k/a Community-Based Organizations or CBOs), criminal justice entities, and various other community organizations, including non-collegiate educational systems. This practical how-to guide is the codification of transferrable lessons from successes and challenges faced when working with clinical, community, and government leaders. By reading this playbook, leaders interested in building (or expanding) connected clinical-community services will learn how to: 1) facilitate cross-sector care coordination; 2) enable community care partners to better provide targeted services to community residents; 3) reduce duplication of services across partnering organizations; and 4) help to bridge service gaps in the currently fragmented system. Implementation of services, as recommended in this book, will ultimately streamline assistance efforts, reduce repeat crises and emergency funding requests, help address disparities of care, and improve the health, safety, and well-being of the most vulnerable community residents.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Resolving Tough Community Problems with Teamwork The first resource that shows how key players from local governments, businesses, health care organizations, school boards, churches, and police departments can be turned into a team, working together to improve their communities. The editors have gathered the accumulated wisdom of top consultants and practitioners and share the experiences and accomplishments of these experts who have worked in over fifty community partnerships across North America. A useful, hands-on tool, this workbook contains a wealth of resources--including worksheets, guidelines, overhead slides, and case studies--designed to help every community implement a workable plan of action. It takes you through the Seven Core Processes, a synthesis of interrelated activities and events in which all collaborative efforts engage. Will help communities * Gain insight into the collaborative process * Jump-start community efforts with new strategies and initiatives * Understand and work through the action steps of each Core Process * Craft more effective partnerships * Create healthier and safer places to live

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

Scholars and policymakers increasingly call for evidence-based, prevention-oriented, and community-driven approaches to improve public health and reduce youth crime, substance use, and related problems. However, few functional models exist. In Communities that Care, four leading experts on prevention describe one such system to illustrate how communities effectively engage in prevention activities. Communities That Care (CTC) is a coalition-based prevention system implemented successfully in dozens of communities across the world that promotes healthy development and reduces crime rates for youth. Drawing on literature from criminology, community psychology, and prevention science this book describes the conditions and actions necessary for effective community-based prevention. The authors illustrate how effective community-based prevention can be undertaken by describing how the CTC prevention system has been developed, implemented, evaluated, and disseminated across the U.S. and internationally. Communities that Care shares invaluable lessons about the implementation and evaluation of community-level interventions and establishes a set of best practices for anyone seeking to engage in and/or evaluate effective prevention efforts.

Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health is a step-by-step guide for building durable coalitions to improve community and public health. This important resource provides an in-depth, analytical, and practical approach to building, sustaining, and nurturing these complex organizations. Author Frances Dunn Butterfoss includes all the tools for success in collaborative work from a research and practice-based stance. The book contains useful approaches to the issues, recommendations for action, resources for further study, and examples from actual coalition work. Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health explores Historical foundations of coalitions and partnerships Principles of collaboration and partnering Benefits and challenges of a coalition approach Coalition frameworks and models Cultivating coalition leadership Roles and responsibilities of coalition staff, leaders, and members Communication, decision-making, and problem-solving methods Vision, mission, and bylaws Effective marketing Planning for sustainability Approaches to assessment Developing strategic and action plans Implementing coalition strategies in the community Media advocacy, strategies, and tips Participatory coalition evaluation

Community-Based Health Interventions in an Institutional Context examines challenges of "institutionalizing" community-based health care. While the community-based or localized model is growing in popularity and importance in the United States, in practice it must often be brought in to larger institutions in order to grow to scale. The typical goals of an institution—standardization, formalization, and control—may be seen as antithetical to those of a community-based healthcare provider, such as spontaneity, customization, and flexibility. The contributions to this work raise questions about how the community-based model can be scaled up through institutions, and how "institutionalization" can be rethought from a bottom-up approach. They provide not only an overview of community-based organizations, but also delve into practical topics such as establishing budgets, training workers, incorporating technology, as well as more theoretical topics like goal-setting, policy effects (like the ACA), and relationships between patient and community. This work will be of interest for researchers interested in exploring the community-based health care model, as well as practitioners in health care and health policy.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have been moving from volume-based, fee-for-service payment to value-based payment (VBP), which aims to improve health care quality, health outcomes, and patient care experiences, while also controlling costs. Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, CMS has implemented a variety of VBP strategies, including incentive programs and risk-based alternative payment models. Early evidence from these programs raised concerns about potential unintended consequences for health equity. Specifically, emerging evidence suggests that providers disproportionately serving patients with social risk factors for poor health outcomes (e.g., individuals with low socioeconomic position, racial and ethnic minorities, gender and sexual minorities, socially isolated persons, and individuals residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods) may be more likely to fare poorly on quality rankings and to receive financial penalties, and less likely to receive financial rewards. The drivers of these disparities are poorly understood, and differences in interpretation have led to divergent concerns about the potential effect of VBP on health equity. Some suggest that underlying differences in patient characteristics that are out of the control of providers lead to differences in health outcomes. At the same time, others are concerned that differences in outcomes between providers serving socially at-risk populations and providers serving the general population reflect disparities in the provision of health care. Systems Practices for the Care of Socially At-Risk Populations seeks to better distinguish the drivers of variations in performance among providers disproportionately serving socially at-risk populations and identifies methods to account for social risk factors in Medicare payment programs. This report identifies best practices of high-performing hospitals, health plans, and other providers that serve disproportionately higher shares of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and compares those best practices of low-performing providers serving similar patient populations. It is the second in a series of five brief reports that aim to inform the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) analyses that account for social risk factors in Medicare payment programs mandated through the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act.