NEWS RELEASE

September 8, 2016
Contact: Veronica Mikitka Reed This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 215.434.7194

Delaware Public Health Institute Releases First Household Health Survey Results
Access to care, chronic disease and social capital among key topics from the region’s largest health survey

NEWARK—The influence of the Affordable Care Act, chronic disease and social capital are some of the key findings released today from the 2015 Delaware Public Health Institute’s first Delaware Household Health Survey (HHS), which is modeled after Public Health Management Corporation’s (PHMC) Community Health Data Base biennial survey. This is a comprehensive health survey covering 2,609 randomly selected households (adults 18+) reached through cellphones and landlines in Kent County, Sussex County, The Greater Wilmington area, and the remainder of New Castle County.

“The Household Health Survey is a unique, one-of-a-kind local snapshot based on its sophisticated analysis of data at the regional, county and even smaller geographical levels,” said Francine Axler, Executive Director of Delaware Public Health Institute. “The first-of-its-kind 2015 survey data features information on health indicators such as chronic disease, access to care, mental health and substance abuse, insurance coverage and social capital.”

The majority of Delawareans are in excellent or very good health (83 percent), but nearly one in five adults are reportedly in fair or poor health. This statistic serves as a call to action across the state to gain a better understanding of the factors the influence health in order to improve overall health outcomes.

ACCESS TO CARE AND SERVICES
People who have a regular source of care are more likely to seek care when they are sick compared with those who do not. This allows people to receive earlier, less expensive treatment, get well more quickly and prevent costly complications.

• The majority of Delawareans (85 percent) have a regular source of care.
• Eighty-two percent of Delawareans use a private doctor’s office as their regular source of care. This is consistent across all geographic regions.
  - The lowest percentage of private doctor office use was found in the Center City sub-region of Wilmington (76 percent) where more than one-third reported one or more visits to the Emergency Room in the past year.

INSURANCE COVERAGE AND COST BARRIERS
Delaware does not meet the national Healthy People 2020 goals of 100 percent insurance coverage, with seven percent (59,600) of adults still uninsured. High costs continue to be an issue among Delawareans. With or without health insurance, one in 10 adults were unable to get needed care due to cost and about 132,900 adults (14.5 percent) were prescribed medication but did not fill it due to cost.

• About 14 percent of adults in Delaware looked into purchasing health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace
  - Two-thirds (66 percent) of them found it somewhat difficult or very difficult to find a plan they could afford to use and less than half (38 percent) enrolled.

HEALTH BEHAVIORS
Health behaviors quite often directly impact and influence overall health outcomes.

• Approximately 18 percent of Delaware adults (18+) currently smoke. This percentage is higher than the national average (16.8 percent).
• Approximately 33 percent (281,321) of Delaware adults ages 18 and over are obese. This is slightly lower than the national average (35 percent).
  - Out of all the counties, Sussex County has the highest percentage of obesity (36 percent). The sub-region of Milford, within Sussex County has the highest obesity rates across all regions and counties, respectively.

MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Mental illness has wide-reaching effects on people’s education, employment, physical health, and relationships.

• Nearly 17 percent of surveyed adults 18 and over have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, and 57,613 (37.4 percent) are not receiving treatment.
  - Delawareans with a diagnosed mental health condition are three times as likely to have a substance abuse problem.
• 123,000 adults surveyed (13.4 percent) report having four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) before they reached the age of 18.
  - Those with four or more ACEs are over five times as likely to have a substance abuse problem.

SOCIAL CAPITAL
The 2015 survey included a series of questions designed to assess social capital, or the expected collective or economic benefits derived from cooperation between individuals and groups. Topics such as how often individuals witness violence, how much trust they have their neighbors, access to safe outdoor space and fresh fruits and vegetables were included.

• Three in five (61 percent) of adults in Center City Wilmington report witnessing violence in their community on more than one occasion/many times. This percentage is nearly two and three times higher than any other sub-region.
  - The overwhelming majority of residents in Center City (90 percent) have access to a park or outdoor space in their neighborhood; however 21 percent still do not feel comfortable visiting the park during the day.

This information provides a glimpse into the types of issues captured by over 100 key health indicators, demographics, and custom geographic areas available in the DE HHS, which includes Kent County, Sussex County, The Greater Wilmington Area, and The Remainder of New Castle County.
The raw data files are accessible through DE Community Health Database (CHDB) membership for more in-depth multi-level analysis, program planning, and policy development. Please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.

About Delaware Public Health Institute
The Delaware Public Health Institute (DPHI) is a nonprofit in collaboration between founding partners Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), Pennsylvania’s public health institute, and the University of Delaware, College of Health Sciences (CHS). DPHI is the first and only public health institute in Delaware.

About Public Health Management Corporation’s Community Health Data Base
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. The Community Health Data Base’s (CHDB) mission is to drive date-led community impact for the well-being of the community. The CHDB addresses the increasingly important role of data in health care policy and decision making through tools like the biennial Household Health Survey. For more information, visit www.chdbdata.org.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2016
Contact: Veronica Mikitka Reed (215.434.7194 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Early Childhood Education Workforce Transformation Initiative
Released Strategies to Improve the ECE Profession

PHILADELPHIA, PA— The Early Childhood Education Workforce Transformation Initiative (ECEWTI), a partnership between Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC), Montgomery Early Learning Centers (MELC) and Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) previewed its preliminary report data and key findings addressing early childhood education (ECE) workforce issues in Philadelphia yesterday.

“Governor Tom Wolf and Mayor Jim Kenney are working to expand pre-K in the state and Philadelphia,” said Natalie Renew, Managing Director of the ECE Group, PHMC. “These initiatives will create more jobs in the field, but our current workforce is unprepared to meet the need for the new jobs. The ECEWTI report is a blueprint for how to grow and advance the workforce to provide quality ECE for more children and families.”

While the benefits of quality early childhood education (ECE) are widely known and accepted, public systems are underfunded and neither serve all eligible children nor serve all children in quality settings. There are multiple, complex factors that challenge bringing quality ECE to scale, and the ECEWTI report provides recommendations for addressing the key issues including: insufficient public rates of pay to ECE providers, insufficient rates of pay to ECE teachers, certified teacher shortages, and limited teacher effectiveness.

Key Issue Findings:

Teacher Recruitment

• Issue: ECE teacher shortages exist due to both job growth and departure of teachers from the field. Recruitment efforts are hampered by the poor compensation offered. Pre-kindergarten programs require certified teachers and compete with public elementary schools, which pay more and provide more generous benefits, in hiring.
  
  
• Report Recommendations: To adequately bolster recruitment, compensation needs to be addressed. This can be accomplished through increased consultation to providers in maximizing efficiency, and drawing down multiple sources of funding so more can be directed to staff compensation. Advocacy with the Office of Children Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) will also ensure that childcare subsidy rates are based on cost calculations that include appropriate salaries. In addition to compensation, ECE teacher affinity groups can be used to expand to new populations, ECE providers can introduce middle school students to ECE careers and create volunteer opportunities in ECE for high school students. College teacher preparation programs can introduce students to an ECE career and education pathway to promote teaching in the ECE sector. Policy makers can expand means for non-traditional teachers to qualify as certified teachers, by relaxing undergraduate course or degree requirements.

Teacher Preparation

• Issue: Teacher preparation programs in the region, while accredited, are not fully meeting the needs of their students or the ECE programs that employ them. While the Pennsylvania Department of Education created the pre-kindergarten to grade 4 teacher category more than a decade ago, teacher preparation programs continue to struggle to address the development and needs of young children (birth-5) in their course work and field experiences.
  
  
• Report Recommendations: To better prepare teachers, local higher education institutions, public leaders, ECE employers and experts need to join forces around expectations for the ECE field. ECEWTI created a set of standards for higher education programs, and proposed a set of resources and assistance to help institutions meet these best practice standards for preparing ECE teachers. Other strategies include creation of a website to serve as a comprehensive data source on teacher preparation programs, ensuring that the state’s professional development resources are primarily spent on credit-bearing PD, and leveraging new federal education and workforce development regulations.

Retention and Advancement

• Issue: In the ECE setting, good teaching is understood to require a teacher to build and sustain a nurturing relationship with the children she teaches. Children experience teacher absences and turnover as loss and, therefore, these factors disrupt learning gains. Turnover among ECE teachers, which hovers at 30 percent as compared to 15 percent in kindergarten to grade-12. This turnover negatively impacts children, families and the learning centers they leave. In addition, high turnover has been demonstrated to prevent ECE programs from improving their quality. The ECE career pathway doesn’t result in salary levels that compensate for the time and cost of further education like career paths in a school district.
  
  
• Report Recommendations: Increased compensation will lower turnover and incentivize advancement. In addition to compensation, funding is needed to study and address workplace environment factors, increase access to credentials for incumbent workers through apprenticeship programs that tie into higher wages and credit for prior learning. In addition, a plan must be created to determine how to provide effective career advising and tuition assistance programs to help teachers earn Bachelor of Arts degrees and specialized certifications.

During the event last night, Anne Gemmell, PreK Director, City of Philadelphia, and Rhian Evans Allvin, Executive Director, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) shared some key insights that include:

- Anne Gemmell:

• Cities across the county are watching the outcome regarding ECE in Philadelphia.
• ECE can be compared to Benjamin Franklin’s iconic imagery of the key attached to a kite as an anchor in Philadelphia – today’s anchor being child poverty.
• While they won’t achieve universal pre-K in Kenney’s first term, the goal is to commit $20MM and increase kids’ access to quality pre-K by 10k slots. By the third year the goal is to commit $60M for pre K.
• ECE is a “long game for workforce development” — it’s investment in workforce development at the 3 and 4 year old level and today. In order to accomplish this she asked everyone’s support and advocacy for the sugary tax proposal.

- Rhian Evans Allvin

• Nationally governmental officials across states and party lines understand the issue more and are trying to outdo one another in focusing on early childhood education. Childcare providers have known the science of early brain development and the broader public is now understanding this and therefore supporting ECE investments across the country. Our country is built on starting life with a fair start, but regardless of opportunity there are higher expectations for 5 year-olds entering kindergarten, which isn’t fair.
• The next big system issue in this country is the investment in high-quality ECE educators.
• NAEYC is focusing on a communications campaign for the educator to highlight the critical importance of their role. They are also working towards policy changes and uniform credentialing, accreditation requirements across states similar to the nurse practitioners and physical therapists.

The Process Behind the Report: ECEWTI collected the data through online surveys, focus groups, interviews, case studies, secondary data analysis, and literature reviews. Data was collected from employers, staff, and teacher preparation programs in order to learn about the local ECE workforce and to develop strategies for realizing a teacher workforce fully qualified and of sufficient size to deliver quality ECE.

Click here for the preliminary report.

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About ECEWTI: Early Childhood Education Workforce Transformation Initiative (ECEWTI) is a partnership between Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC), Montgomery Early Learning Centers (MELC) and Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC). ECEWTI studies the early childhood education sector and develops strategies that will result in a larger, more skilled, and more stable workforce. This is funded by a generous grant from the William Penn Foundation www.melc.org/about/workforce-development/

About DVAEYC: Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) is dedicated to ensuring educational opportunity for every child in the community. To accomplish this, DVAEYC trains early childhood professionals in best practice skills and career development; coaches early childhood education programs to meet higher standards of PA Keystone STARS and national accreditation; and engages policy makers to invest in high quality early childhood education throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania. Learn more at www.dvaeyc.org.

About MELC: Montgomery Early Learning Centers (MELC) provides high quality early childhood education and school age programs for more than 1,400 children at 19 locations in Philadelphia and Montgomery counties. In addition, through Professional Development Dimensions, MELC helps thousands of teachers improve their practice by creating professional development opportunities and providing guidance. . Learn more at www.melc.org.

About PHMC: Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org. PHMC provides ECE efforts through the Southeast Regional Key, which seeks to increase the capacity of providers to support children’s learning and development; Philadelphia Head Start Partnership that administers Head Start programs to more than 600 children and families in Southwest Philadelphia; Fund for Quality, which aims to expand the availability of quality early childhood education and care opportunities for low-income families; and A Running Start Philadelphia: Facility Fund that provides support to high quality early childhood education providers for the maintenance and improvement of their facilities.

NEWS RELEASE

April 4, 2016
Contact: Veronica Mikitka Reed, For PHMC, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 215-434-7194

PUBLIC HEALTH MANAGEMENT CORPORATION CELEBRATES
NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK

The region’s largest nonprofit public health institute looks at its impact

PHILADELPHIA, PA—Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities, is working to underscore the need for comprehensive public health programming through the celebration of National Public Health Week, April 4-10.

“As one of the largest public health institutes in the country, PHMC is continuously focused on new ways to collaboratively work with and in the communities we serve to improve public health,” said Richard J. Cohen, PHMC’s President and CEO. “We do this work each day through the strength of our partnerships, programs, affiliates.”

With more than 350 programs, a family of affiliates and various partnerships with government, foundations, businesses and community-based organizations, the work of PHMC impacts every household in Philadelphia. Over the past several years, PHMC has expanded to create a continuum of public health services from early childhood to adulthood and include diverse populations in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

National Public Health Week 2016 focuses on several key themes including building a nation of safe, healthy communities; helping all young people graduate from high school; building a relationship between increased economic mobility and better health; social justice & health; providing quality health care for everyone; and strengthening the public health infrastructure.

These themes embody many of the efforts PHMC and its affiliates have been working toward this past year. Here is a closer look at how PHMC has been addressing these issues.

Building a Nation of Safe and Healthy Communities
Health Promotion Council (HPC), a PHMC affiliate, its Advocacy Institute, and the Real Talk Tobacco class series kicked-off #Philly1st, a social media campaign that challenges leaders and citizens to make Philadelphia the first city to drop its youth smoking rate to zero percent. #Philly1st was the result of six months of work on community and systems level changes conducted by Philadelphia students, ages 14-18, where they learned how to use policy, community and media advocacy to fight the impact of Big Tobacco in their community.

Creating safe parks and playgrounds can help form a healthy community. The 2015 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey (HHS), a biennial survey conducted by PHMC’s Community Health Data Base, shared regional facts about our access to parks. The HHS found that among adults who have access to a nearby park or outdoor space they are comfortable visiting, slightly more than one-quarter, or 28.3 percent, are obese compared to more than three in ten, or 35.5 percent, of those who do not have access to parks or outdoor space. In Southeastern Pennsylvania, 78.2 percent have a park or outdoor space they are comfortable visiting, vs. 21.8 percent who do not.

Helping Young People Graduate from High School
Education is the leading indicator of good health, giving people access to better jobs, incomes and neighborhoods. Quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs have been tied to reducing the effects of poverty by improving cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development for children residing in low-income families, in turn increasing school readiness and reducing the achievement gap between socio-economic statuses. The Early Childhood Education Workforce Transformation Initiative (ECEWTI), a partnership between Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC), Montgomery Early Learning Centers (MELC) and Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is working to address early childhood education workforce issues in Philadelphia that affect the outcomes for the children. This month, ECEWTI released a report addressing early childhood education workforce issues in the region.

HPC also influences the youth of Philadelphia through the Out of School-Time (OST) Partnership Initiative to address childhood obesity in Philadelphia. This project tackled the monumental task of shaping the OST environment by creating and implementing a set of Healthy Living Guidelines for nutrition and physical activity within after-school programs throughout Philadelphia.

Building a Relationship between Increased Economic Mobility and Better Health
The science is clear: poverty and poor health go hand-in-hand. It’s time to fix our country’s growing income inequality and the unhealthy stresses it puts on adults and children. PHMC affiliate The Workforce Institute aims to transform lives through job readiness training, industry certifications and post-secondary education to those with limited resources. The Workforce Institute’s City College recently began offering an Associate’s degree in Specialized Technology with majors in Computer Support Specialist, Software, and Web Design, as well as a diploma in Health Information Technology. Since the start of the program, 84 percent of participants have completed the educational program and 72 percent of these students have found a job, with half of them successfully retaining the position.

Social Justice and Health
An integrated approach to care addresses not only health issues, but also issues that have an undue influence on health, such as legal and financial stress. The Rising Sun Health Center was one of the first nurse-managed FQHCs in the nation to offer integrated legal and financial services. PHMC worked with affiliate, Clarifi, a non-profit community resource devoted to promoting lifelong financial literacy, to offer the on-site financial services. While the free legal services in civil matters to low-income Philadelphians are provided through a partnership with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia (CLS).

Providing Quality Health Care for Everyone
Health care reform was just a start. To fulfill its potential, we must continue to pursue options for expanded access to quality care at the federal, state and local levels. To ensure that all Americans, including the underserved, have access to high-quality care, the National Nursing Centers Consortium (NNCC) continues its efforts to advocate for all nurse practitioners to be able to practice to the fullest extent of their education and licensure. NNCC was one of 39 health care collaborative networks selected to participate in the national Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative. NNCC is receiving up to $2.1 million over four years to provide technical assistance support to help equip nurse practitioners and other clinicians across the country with tools, information, and network support needed to improve quality of care, increase patients’ access to information, and spend health care dollars more wisely.

Strengthening the Public Health Infrastructure and Capacity
Strong and consistent funding levels are necessary for the public health system to respond to behavioral and mental health issues. PHMC’s President and CEO Richard J. Cohen took a stand last fall regarding the Pennsylvania budget impasse in an Opinion Editorial in The Patriot News. He shared the importance of passing a budget immediately and the impact it has on the critical programs like behavioral health programs for the mentally ill, social services for Pre-K children and families, support services for foster children and families at risk hang in the balance. In addition to outlining the effects, he provided recommendations on what the government needs to do to prevent this issue for public health providers during future budget impasses.

PHMC Twitter Chats
PHMC will host two Twitter chats during National Public Health Week on some of the hottest public health topics in the Philadelphia region.

• Twitter Chat #1/Monday, April 4: Helping young people graduate from high school starts with quality early childhood education.
• Twitter Chat #2/Friday, April 8: Providing quality health care for everyone with a focus on nurse-led care and community health centers.

Join the conversation and share your views on these key topics. Follow @PHMCtweets and join the chats by adding #phmc to your tweets.

About PHMC
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Veronica Mikitka Reed
215.434.7194
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

New Rankings Shed Light on Where Pennsylvania Counties Could Improve Health

PHILADELPHIA (March 16, 2016) – Chester County ranks healthiest in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia County is the least healthy county in the state, according to the seventh annual County Health Rankings, released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI). The Rankings are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org.

“As the state team lead agency analyzing the Rankings for Pennsylvania, we find that the information is an important way to understand the relationship between where we live and our health,” said Francine Axler, Executive Director of Public Health Management Corporation’s Community Health Data Base. “It’s helpful to see where certain counties need improvement so public health organizations like PHMC can target and address specific health issues.”

The Rankings are an easy-to-use snapshot comparing the health of nearly every county in the nation. The local-level data allows each state to see how its counties compare on more than 30 factors that influence health including education, housing, jobs, smoking, access to healthy food, and more.

According to the 2016 Rankings, the five healthiest counties in Pennsylvania, starting with most healthy, are Chester County, followed by Union County, Montgomery County, Centre County, and Cumberland County. The five counties in the poorest health, starting with least healthy, are Philadelphia County, Fayette County, Sullivan County, Luzerne County, and Cambria County.

“The County Health Rankings show how important it is to examine all the conditions that impact well-being and can help families thrive,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, RWJF president and CEO. “Communities around the nation are using the County Health Rankings to drive improvements in education, housing, job training, healthy food options, and more, as they work to build a Culture of Health.”

This year, the Rankings took a closer look at the differences in health between urban, rural, suburban, and smaller metro counties and found that:

• Rural counties not only have higher rates of premature death, but also nearly 1 in 5 rural counties saw rises in premature death rates over the past decade, while most urban counties have experienced consistent improvement.
• Rural counties have higher rates of smoking, obesity, child poverty, teen births, and higher numbers of uninsured adults than their urban counterparts.
• Large urban counties have lower smoking and obesity rates, fewer injury deaths, and more residents who attended some college.
• Large suburban counties have the lowest rates of childhood poverty and teen births.

The 2016 Rankings Key Findings Report highlights some new measures including residential segregation among blacks and whites, drug overdose deaths, and insufficient sleep and how they contribute to health. Learn more about those findings at countyhealthrankings.org.

“The Rankings data are only as valuable as the action it inspires and the lives it improves,” said Bridget Catlin, PhD, MHSA, co-director of the County Health Rankings. “Whether it’s addressing health gaps between counties or the concentration of poverty in rural or residentially segregated communities—targeting resources to the people and places in greatest need is essential to building a Culture of Health. The Rankings are an important springboard for conversations on how to expand opportunity for all to be healthy.”

The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps tools, which include a database of evidence-informed approaches, personalized coaching, and a range of other resources, can assist communities in their efforts to improve health.

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About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are working with others to build a national Culture of Health enabling everyone in America to live longer, healthier lives. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.

About the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute
The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute advances health and well-being for all by developing and evaluating interventions and promoting evidence-based approaches to policy and practice at the local, state, and national levels. The Institute works across the full spectrum of factors that contribute to health. A focal point for health and health care dialogue within the University of Wisconsin-Madison and beyond, and a convener of stakeholders, the Institute promotes an exchange of expertise between those in academia and those in the policy and practice arena. The Institute leads the work on the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps and manages the RWJF Culture of Health Prize. For more information, visit http://uwphi.pophealth.wisc.edu.

About Public Health Management Corporation’s Community Health Data Base
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. The Community Health Data Base (CHDB) includes the Household Health Survey, the largest regional health survey in the country. The Pew Charitable Trusts, United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, United Way of North Penn, Green Tree Community Health Foundation, North Penn Community Health Foundation, Thomas Scattergood Foundation, Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, and more than 350 local agencies from the health, government, nonprofit and academic sectors help to support the CHDB and the survey. For more information, visit www.chdbdata.org.