HJNO Jan/Feb 2022

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  JAN / FEB 2022 41 tual meetings around the state where we engaged with residents to hear about their health concerns directly. At those meetings, we heard a lot about issues pertaining to healthcare, economic development and the environment. Cross-cutting themes from these meetings included health equity, community partnerships and access to re- sources and opportunities. Following those meetings, we fielded a statewide survey. The survey was complet- ed in October, and we had about 4,500 re- sponses. The heart of the survey was going through a bunch of issues and saying, “How much of a problem do you think this health issue is?” The survey also looked at the foundations of health, for example, ques- tions such as: “Does your community have access to parks?” “Does everyone in your community have an equal opportunity to get a good education?”Ultimately, we asked about people’s perceptions of access to ba- sic sources and factors that improve health. We are still doing some analysis of the data from the survey. The data from the survey will be added to the State Health As- sessment dashboard soon. We are currently doing some one-on-one interviews to do some deep dives to get a story behind the numbers. To do that, we are working with our partner, the Louisiana Public Health Institute. Those interviews will take place in January and February 2022, so we can really enhance our State Health Assessment with some engaging stories to make the numbers come alive. We are getting ready to transition right now to creating the State Health Improve- ment Plan from January 2022 to August 2022. We’ll be doing another round of vir- tual meetings across the state this spring to inform that plan. In the summer of 2022, we So, we know that the more resources put into early education, the more likely you are to see better health outcomes, longer life expectancy and reduced healthcare costs over a lifetime. Educational attainment is one example of a foundation of health that has been overlooked for a long time. BMAC What kind of work did it take to make the State Health Assessment dashboard? And what do you think the public should get out of the dashboard? HINES When developing the dashboard with our technology partner, mySidewalk, we wanted to focus on health equity to guide us on how we present information and to identify what data would need to be placed on the dashboard. The Robert Wood John- son definition of health equity is that every- one has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. We wanted the public to be able to look at the dashboard and understand the drivers of health inequities within their individual communities. This can be broken down by region or parish. We also want the public to have a con- crete idea of how to address some of the health inequity issues. Through the dash- board, you can learn how to get involved. We don’t want the dashboard to just be a place where people go and see bad news, but, rather, a place to go to receive an ac- curate picture of what’s going on and have guidance on how to address the problems. BMAC How did you decide to focus on health equity in the State HealthAssessment? HINES It’s simply not possible to improve health outcomes in the state without a fo- cus on health equity. For this reason, health will publish the State Health Improvement Plan in the form of an interactive website and dashboard. BMAC What are the foundations of commu- nity health? How does this concept fit into the State Health Assessment and the State Health Improvement Plan? CAIN The foundations of community health, which are sometimes called the social de- terminants of health, really influence peo- ple’s health outcomes. There are severe inequities in people’s access to health, edu- cation, housing and many other factors that can cause someone to have a “bad health day” or a “good health day.” We want to really draw attention to the foundations of community health and in- equities in health outcomes and make sure people are having many more good health days than bad ones. As a department, we are working every day on addressing health outcomes, but at the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that we have such disparate poverty rates and inequities in housing and education — something that is a communi- ty and a state problem we all have to work on. We can’t just be talking about health and medical solutions in a vacuum. There is more to the story than just healthcare. HINES Another example of a foundation of health is educational attainment and ac- cess to high-quality education. Access to high-quality education is also tied to ac- cess to insurance and rent. A person who has higher educational attainment tends to have more opportunities for employment, which tends to lead to more opportunities for health insurance, which tends to lead to more visits to a doctor. Robert Hines, MSPH Deputy Director for Planning and Performance Louisiana Department of Health