The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #50590

Theresa Heaton, BSN, MPH, Kane County (IL) Health Department, 210 S. Sixth Street, Geneva, IL 60134, 630-208-5149, heatontheresa@co.kane.il.us and Uche Onwuta, MPH, Kane County Health Department, 210 S. Sixth Street, Geneva, IL 60134.

Public/private partnerships at the local level require innovative strategies to assure success, joint learning opportunities to cultivate group identity, and establishment of mutual goals to assure partner commitment. The Kane County Health Department developed a public/private partnership with local hospitals to launch a community planning process to improve perinatal outcomes and address system gaps for the annual 7-8,000 births in the county. This Perinatal Committee established its mission and began to function collaboratively as a planning body to establish a community standard of care for perinatal health. This partnership was accelerated through its participation in a pilot project with the state Department of Vital Statistics for use of electronic birth certificate data-- together with simultaneous participation in a Data Use Academy offered by a local university and the state Department of Human Services. The Perinatal Committee studied birth certificate data related to teen mother tobacco use and maternal/infant outcomes as a prototype to explore ways we could use the data for timely intervention and health system improvement. This public/private partnership among the hospitals, university, state Human Services Department, state Vital records Department, and the Health Department yielded valuable benefits: improved Committee skills in utilizing birth certificate data for planning, policy, and intervention; enhanced data use skills and utilization of GIS technology; motivated planning process; strong, ongoing partnership for perinatal issues; and specific action steps to improve data collection locally on birth certificates, since our data revealed that birth certificate data inaccurately portrayed the prevalence of smoking among our teen mothers.

Learning Objectives: The participant will be able to

• Recognize essential components for developing community planning through a public/private partnership
• Articulate synergistic events which support and maintain the partnership
• Identify potential partners and srategies for creating community planning bodies with public and private partners
• Discuss the relationship of data use, community planning, and partnership enhancement.

Keywords: Community Health Planning, Public/Private Partnerships

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.