UCLA Center for Health Policy Research to lead development of new network of state and local health

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research announced today the formation of a National Network of State and Local Health Surveys, developed with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The Network is dedicated to promoting coordination to collect state and local data that is comparable across states and local areas and with national surveys.

Currently, most state and local level health surveys are not coordinated, resulting in data from these surveys not being comparable to each other or with national surveys.  Many national surveys do not collect large enough samples at the local, county or sometimes even state levels to provide adequately representative estimates on key health issues.  Yet planning for health programs and delivering health services takes place at the local level, where a lack of data makes it challenging for health professionals to understand the needs of the population they serve, particularly in the context of national policies like health reform.

In response to this need, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (the Center) has initiated a project to develop a new national network dedicated to the coordinated collection of comparable health statistics. Local population health data are crucial to understanding and tracking access to health care, prevalence of chronic illness and health behaviors, and health workforce capacity and effectiveness, which are needed for the implementation and monitoring of health reform and to address health disparities affecting racial and ethnic groups, rural areas, and low-income communities.
 
The Center currently conducts the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation's largest state health survey and a leading model for the collection of high-quality, local-level data. The new national network, funded by RWJF, will strive to promote high-quality data that is comparable across states and with federal surveys, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Health Interview Survey.  To do this, the network will foster communication among state survey leaders, health data users, foundations and federal agencies through a common website, e-newsletter, meetings and outreach. The network will also provide guidance to state survey leaders on developing surveys and disseminating survey data to policy audiences and researchers.

"The approach to understanding American's health so far has depended too heavily on national data, which does not adequately reflect the local conditions that affect the health of communities," said E. Richard Brown, the Center's director.  "Now is the time for us to marshal our efforts to produce the kind of systematic, high-quality data that will make it easy for policymakers and other health leaders, health advocates, the media and others to understand the health challenges affecting communities across the nation and to inform local and national efforts to improve health outcomes."

The network will also collaborate with national organizations working in public health, including the area of public health systems and services research, which use population health data to evaluate planning in the public health arena, especially around workforce capacity issues.

Debra Joy Perez, a senior program officer at RWJF and the Foundation’s interim vice president of research and evaluation, said the initiative can play a key role in supporting decision-making about needed resources in communities, and in enabling practitioners, researchers and citizens to have a better understanding of health needs and assets in communities. 

“By promoting comparable health surveys, we can help reduce duplication of effort, promote sharing within states, and make efforts more cost-effective,” Perez said. “These efforts will also help answer critical questions and integrate with existing data sources, including the County Health Rankings, to paint a broader and more accurate picture of community health.”

The network will build upon nearly six years of Center efforts to bring together stakeholders interested in better quality and more coordinated data collection efforts.  Currently, groups representing 15 states participate in this preliminary network, while other states and groups have expressed support for this effort.

For more information about the National Network of State and Local Health Surveys (the Health Surveys Network) please contact A.J. Scheitler, network coordinator, at: ajscheitler@ucla.edu.