America’s Health Rankings sat down with leaders in the public health space to discuss how access to actionable data helps them to address key health challenges. To hear the rest of our conversations, watch the full video here.
Dr. Rhonda Randall serves as the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President for UnitedHealthcare’s Employer & Individual, where she works to improve health care quality and affordability for the more than 26 million Americans enrolled in employer-sponsored plans. Dr. Randall is also Senior Medical Advisor to America's Health Rankings and a member of the Board of the United Health Foundation.
How would you describe America’s Health Rankings as a valuable tool?
America’s Health Rankings is a comprehensive and holistic platform that contains well over 300 measures of health from over two dozen publicly available health data sources. Through ranking reports, each of those measures is compiled, weighted and examined relative to one another. This approach helps address social and economic determinants of health, behavioral health and the quality of clinical care made available to patients. All those measures produce a good, comprehensive look at whole-person health at the state and national levels.
The other factor that makes this report a valuable tool is the subpopulation data. With subpopulation data, you can better understand not just what health trends are happening, but where they are occurring and which populations are most affected. Subpopulation data gives us insight into the greatest health challenges and opportunities found at the local levels. This makes it among the most actionable information in the report for policymakers and public health officials.
How has America’s Health Rankings helped you understand the trajectory of public health over time?
One of the other qualities that makes America’s Health Rankings unique is that it is the longest-standing population health report of its kind, starting in 1990 and continuing through today. That enables us to see those macro trends over time, and also on a year-by-year basis, to see where things are starting to move in the right or wrong direction — even if they look good or bad today.
For example, 10 years ago, based on this report, there was concern about the trajectory of obesity in the United States, which has sadly continued to trend in the wrong direction. America’s Health Rankings data were able to shine a spotlight on that trend. More recently, we've seen concerning data regarding maternal mortality, particularly for mothers of color. The longstanding data America’s Health Rankings provides helps us infer if this is just a one-year anomaly or a long-term trend that may continue year over year. This understanding helps us determine what action is necessary to help improve health outcomes.
How can medical professionals like yourself leverage the data America’s Health Rankings provides?
There's a really important intersection between primary care and public health. Having primary care physicians who understand public health data, and public health leaders who understand what it's like to work in primary care, are crucial to our population health goals. For example, if you're a primary care physician, maybe an OB-GYN in a rural setting in a particular state, you want to have a good understanding of what the macro health trends are among that population. Understanding this public health data might prompt you to realize that there are a lot of issues around transportation or food insecurity in your community, which can better inform the care you provide.
How can America’s Health Rankings contribute to better outcomes in health policy?
Smoking is a great example of how America’s Health Rankings can make a difference in the health of various populations. Over the last 30 years, smoking among adults fell from 30% to around 16%. America’s Health Rankings identified various reasons for that, including changing attitudes and behaviors, improvements in clinical care and policy reforms, like taxation and public smoking bans. Policymakers were able to use the platform’s state-by-state data, its trend data in behavioral health and developments in the social determinants of health, like the quality of educational systems, to better understand what to look for and how to act. That’s the value of America’s Health Rankings: it pulls together those different sources of public health information and informs health policy in a comprehensive and positive way.
Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.