Wood County – �鶹��Ƶ

Sustaining Wood County Health Department’s Parents as Teachers Program (PAT)

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:41:24 +0000

Evidence shows that home visiting programs can improve birth outcomes and maternal health, improve parenting skills, reduce childhood maltreatment, and improve cognition and social skills in children. In 2023, Wood County Health Department (WCHD) successfully implemented an evidence-based home visiting program called Parents as Teachers (PAT). WCHD has limited grant funding, however, to sustain the program beyond 2027. Multiple sources currently support the program, including a small portion of the program funded under the tax levy in Wood County. Additionally, WCHD has a Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP) Maternal and Child Health Grant through 2024 and funding from a public health infrastructure grant through November 2027. The current funding will allow WCHD to continue their PAT program at the level it is, but it is not enough to provide a comprehensive program that meets
those with the most need.

The plan for long-term sustainability would include additional grant funding in the short term to expand the program to meet the needs of the community. Four potential funding options that have been found to be most aligned with the goals of PAT are proposed. Long term, increasing PAT funding allocated under the tax levy is critical so grant funding can be decreased over time and a consistent funding stream can be obtained.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Evaluating Health Equity of Programs in Wood County

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:37:20 +0000

Wood County Health Department has identified disparities in community health outcomes as a priority consideration for current and future programming. Wood County is home to almost 75,000 individuals, many of whom belong to marginalized groups. The Hmong community, Latinx/e community, Ho-Chunk Nation, and the Amish community are of particular concern to the Health Department in terms of establishing more equitable care and programming.

Our project culminated in a tool, informed by supporting evidence, for the evaluation of health equity in Wood County’s Health Department programs and opportunities for improvement in program efforts, which can be found in the Appendix section of this proposal. Our paper aims to examine existing tools for their efficacy, structure, and application as well as review the relevant literature around the use of similar tools, their implementation, and their effects.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Supporting successful reentry into the community: A statewide resource guide for recently released individuals

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:33:01 +0000

Statewide Resource Guide for Successful Reentry What is the purpose of this list? This list is meant to provide information about resources that support incarcerated individuals or previously incarcerated individuals. This booklet should be provided to individuals at the Wood County jail but may be useful to others as well. This list should be updated [...]

Improving the success of the Wood County Jail Electronic Monitoring Program

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:29:20 +0000

As incarcerated individuals attempt to return to the outside world after being released, they may face several barriers including challenges with finding employment, rekindling familial connections, establishing housing, and having restricted access to governmental assistance — to name a few (Simmons University, 2023). In addition to these challenges, being incarcerated is associated with higher rates of mental illness, which can further burden successful reintegration into society (Handunge, 2022). One potential solution to these obstacles is to develop an efficient electronic monitoring program (EMP) that allows incarcerated individuals to remain integrated in society. At Wood County Jail, an EMP is in place; however, there is no evaluation plan to evaluate the program’s effectiveness, and there is a lack of staff to help track those individuals who are on EMP. An effective EMP at Wood County Jail would decrease the number of individuals housed within the jail and may also decrease rates of recidivism. Thus, we aim to develop an evaluation plan to assess Wood County’s current EMP and provide Wood County with resources to help them achieve the goals of increasing EMP enrollment, decreasing the rate of recidivism, and increasing health equity among incarcerated individuals.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Creating a more equitable workplace and incorporating health equity principles at work

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:26:57 +0000

Wood County Health Department’s (WCHD) workforce development plan is central to the department’s ability to address the critical public health challenges facing Wood County. These challenges include an aging public health workforce, funding cuts, and maintaining accreditation
by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). It is essential to the work of WCHD to identify gaps in knowledge and skills, as well as awareness of organizational and individual needs to create a workforce that can meet the most pressing health needs of Wood County residents (Wood County Health Department, 2020).

One such avenue for the development of the WCHD workforce is health equity. Specifically, creating a workplace that is more equitable and empowering employees to engage with health equity on a daily basis regardless of their programmatic area. The American Heart Association cites health equity as a factor that improves workforce productivity (American Heart Association CEO Roundtable, 2022), and WCHD’s workforce development plan (WDP) is a great opportunity for department leadership to gain insight into ways they can make the workplace more equitable.

We propose a new and improved engagement survey that will yield informative and insightful feedback that can be used to inform the WDP and allow WCHD to reform practices as necessary to create a more competent, equitable workplace. We also recommend additions to the current performance evaluations for non-supervisory and supervisory employees with the goal of providing a method for WCHD employees to be evaluated based on how they are incorporating health equity principles into their daily work. Performance reviews for supervisors as well as regular employees intends to foster equity within the department and reinforce health equity as central to the work of all employees regardless of their programmatic area.

Together, these recommendations will advance the WCHD WDP and the department’s strategic plan goal towards creating and maintaining a culture that exemplifies health equity (Wood County Health Department, 2022). If WCHD becomes more equitable internally while also incorporating health equity into the fabric of their daily work, the residents of Wood County will also reap these benefits, with a reduction of health inequities in Wood County and driving
improved health outcomes for all residents.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Evaluating the return on investment of the Providers and Teens Communicating for Health (PATCH) Program in Wood County

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:24:46 +0000

Communicating the financial return on investment of public health interventions is essential for understanding the full context of a program on community health and reducing biases in program evaluation (Edwards & Lawrence, 2021). Our goal is to identify a method that Wood County Health Department (WCHD) can use to evaluate its Providers and Teens Communicating for Health (PATCH) Program and which can potentially be applied to their other various preventive public health interventions. Our chosen method will allow key PATCH stakeholders such as WCHD, PATCH staff, and community members to determine the impact of the intervention for evaluation and may lead to future funding. By identifying and evaluating the cost of services and resources added to an intervention and calculating the net monetary outcome, stakeholders can use this information to determine the effectiveness of their intervention goal relative to the invested costs. Our chosen economic analysis method will have to be feasible for Wood County, a rural health department with limited access to health records and data, and clearly communicate dollar value of the program, which is generally preferred by Wood County
stakeholders as well as being easy to understand and compare across programs. After conducting a literature review, our project team found three measures that communicate the value of interventions. The first measure we considered was the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), the second measure was Return on Investment (ROI) (and its subtype, Social Return on Investment [SROI]), and the third measure was Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) (and its subtype, Cost-Utility Analysis [CUA]). When considering these measures, it is important to identify the perspective of the analysis to determine the appropriate and relevant costs and benefits. This may include the costs to a health department program (i.e. cost of an intervention) and how it differs from the costs to an individual (i.e. out-of-pocket cost for a hospital stay). Our final analysis will recommend the implementation of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) as the measure for WCHD to use to communicate the impact of their public health interventions

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Improving housing affordability, quality, and access in Wisconsin Rapids

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:09:26 +0000

In 2016 and 2020, residents of Wood County Wisconsin, and Wisconsin Rapids, a city situated in southeastern Wood County, identified housing affordability and housing quality as major health needs. In the 2016 Wisconsin Rapids Housing Study and Needs Assessment and 2020 Wood County Community Health Assessment (CHA), more than 50% of Wisconsin Rapids residents identified access to affordable housing as a community priority and raised concerns about the quality of available rental housing units. This paper provides background on how housing impacts health and outlines several community interventions that the Wood County Health Department and the City of Wisconsin Rapids could implement to improve housing access, affordability, and quality. The authors provide detailed analyses of three interventions and their potential impacts on housing in Wisconsin Rapids: a voluntary rental registration program, a strategic rental inspection program, and tax increment financing. Finally, we provide brief overviews of several additional strategies the community may consider to meet its housing goals.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Improving Wood County health equity via employee policies, hiring practices, and tribal partnerships

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:07:50 +0000

The goal of this group project was to improve health equity in Wood County. Health equity occurs when “[E]veryone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care” (Wood County Health Equity Report 2021). Health inequities are unjust because there are possible preventative measures we can take. With this broad idea in mind, the Wood County Health Department liaison who assisted us narrowed down the project focus to equitable employee policies within the Wood County government, hiring bias county-wide, and relationships with the Native American and other minority populations within the community.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Encouraging the use of Wood County outdoor recreational trails through technology

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:05:04 +0000

Wood County offers a variety of outdoor recreational trails and activities, however, according to the 2022 County Health Rankings for Wood County, 25% of the adult population reported that they did not participate in leisure time physical activity (“Wood, Wisconsin,” n.d.). We will develop evidence-based recommendations for an app that will encourage the utilization of Wood County trails and ensure that visits are safe and enjoyable for all visitors regardless of ability or background. We recommend that Wood County creates a new application and partners with one or more existing third-party applications to achieve this goal. We hope to include Wood County residents and leaders and obtain user data from the application itself once it is live.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu

Increasing Child Care Access and Child Care Staff Retention in Wood County

Ada Inman — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:03:34 +0000

The issue of insufficient numbers of child care providers in Wood County, WI can be attributed to low profit-margins of providers and unsustainable staff wages; it is estimated by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families that 36% of Wood County zip codes are in a child care desert. This has resulted in long waiting lists for families needing child care, which cumulatively affects the workforce of the county. To address these issues, this paper will propose
possible solutions to increase and retain the number of well-trained, caring providers while maintaining the cost for families and concurrently increasing the wage of providers.

UniverCity Contact Info: UniverCityAlliance@wisc.edu