In less than a month, United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings® will be among the topics garnering buzz at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting & Exposition in New Orleans. While you may think of Mardi Gras beads and Bourbon Street when you hear of New Orleans, for the more than 12,000 public health professionals from all across the US who attend the conference, the city will be for sharing lessons in healthy behaviors.
For our team, it’s an opportunity to be surrounded by leaders in the public health space, including many states’ chief health officials. We’ll be saying hello and networking with many of our friends and colleagues, including members of our Scientific Advisory Committee and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, as well as those who contribute to the County Health Rankings and Healthy People 2020. It’s also a great chance to learn about emerging public health trends. We are always on the lookout for better ways to measure state health, and ideas for new metrics or supplemental metrics are often born at these meetings.
Some of the newest members of our team will be presenting at APHA for the first time, including Ben Kofoed and Becky Spitzer, who are Masters of Public Health students at the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, respectively. They’ll join a symposium session on “America’s Health Rankings Senior Report: Measuring the State of Senior Health” on November 19, 2014 at 10:30 a.m. The United Health Foundation’s Shelly Espinosa will introduce the Senior Report, and topics will include:
- Smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity among seniors: Geographic variation and their association with health status (Presenter: Sarah Milder, MPH)
- State Level Variation in Hospital Death Rates and Hospice Utilization (Presenter: Benjamin Kofoed, MPH student, America’s Health Rankings intern)
- Influences of health behaviors and community characteristics on preventable hospitalizations among seniors (Presenter: Becky Spitzer, MPH student, America’s Health Rankings intern)
- Geographic variation and correlates of premature mortality among seniors, (Presenter: Anna Schenck, PhD, MSPH)
Earlier in the day, at 8:30 a.m., we’ll also be part of an epidemiology session—along with Anna Schenck, the Chair of the America’s Health Rankings’ Scientific Advisory Committee—discussing “Health determinants and outcomes by education across the states: Translating data into action.” We’ve asked Dr. Steven Woolf from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health and Minnesota’s Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger to join us to explore the intersection of education and health.
If you happen to be in New Orleans for the conference, we hope you’ll join us and add your thoughts to the discussion. We’re looking forward to hearing them (and to perhaps snagging a beignet or two while we’re in town).
Blog Authors
Tom Eckstein
Tom Eckstein is a co-founder and principle of Arundel Street Consulting, Inc., a new products market research firm located in St. Paul, MN. The firm, started in 1985, works with small companies through Fortune 500 firms in defining new products and services and assessing their potential in the marketplace. Tom has developed and published three nationally distributed studies including America’s Health Rankings for the nearly 3 decades. Prior to Arundel Street Consulting, Tom worked at Eastman Kodak and the 3M Company in product and new business development. Tom is a past president of Minnesota International Health Volunteers and currently the board chair for the Jefferson Center Healthy Democracies. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and his MBA from the University of Minnesota.
Sarah Milder
Sarah coauthors two nationally distributed health indices, America’s Health Rankings and America’s Health Rankings – Senior Report. She manages quantitative research projects; consults on public health development projects; and provides data analysis, interpretation, and management. Sarah holds an MPH in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota and a BS in Psychology and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.