BUILDING A HEALTHIER FUTURE - MAKING CHILDREN'S HEALTH DATA TALK!

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to develop an effective workbook tool for translating and disseminating current children's health findings into public health practice. This project entails analyzing and summarizing the Community wide Children's Health Assessment and Planning Survey (CCHAPS) of families residing in six county region serviced by Cook Children's Healthcare system (Wise, Hood, Parker, Johnson, Denton and Tarrant). The current analysis using 2008 and 2012 CCHAPS data will focus on the seven identified issues of asthma, abuse, dental health, obesity, mental health, safety, and access to care. The aim of the workbook is to provide an epidemiologic description of key children's health issues and to identify promising children's health practices. Methods: We use the Community-wide Children's Health Assessment and Planning Survey (CCHAPS) data from 2008 and 2012. The survey targets parents with at least one child under fourteen years of age. The CCHAPS data will be used to develop an action oriented workbook based on knowledge management strategies and use of The Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). Results: Key findings include an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity for counties Johnson and Parker (2008 to 2012), continued high prevalence of asthma diagnosis for all counties except Hood; and a 1.2% increase in abuse in Wise. To address these key children's health problems, we identified evidence based public health (EBPH) practices using Lavis's Knowledge Management Strategy. We designed a comprehensive workbook tool that 1) describes the magnitude of each leading children's health issue; 2) identifies steps to promoting awareness and preparedness for addressing these various issues at multiple levels; and 3) recommends multi sector EBPH strategies and practices specific to improving each children's health issue. Conclusions: By developing this workbook, based on the knowledge management strategy, we will promote community action to address the different health issues identified by the CCHAPS data. We expect this workbook to motivate the community leaders, policy makers and coalition leaders to strengthen the local public health initiatives and act on the provided information on promising evidence based health practices and intervention strategies to address health issues in children in the six counties.