Key Objectives:
Share experiences and lessons learned from Vermont’s Infectious Disease and Injury Prevention Programs in developing burden documents to inform the State Health Assessment, while fostering discussions with other local, state, and federal stakeholders.
Brief Summary:
The Vermont Department of Health is conducting its second State Health Assessment (SHA) in 2017 as part of its continual performance improvement process. The SHA is a tool for tracking morbidity and mortality, communicating trends and needs, and helping determine where to devote resources to improve population health. The SHA informs the State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP), which addresses long-term health outcomes and prevention goals, while providing evidence-based strategies and guidelines to achieve identified outcomes. This project focused on the creation of an infectious disease burden document and updating the injury burden document for Vermont as part of the larger SHA process. Stakeholders were engaged to assist with an inventory of all existing data, including mortality and morbidity, as well as disease, illness, and injury distribution. Demographics were assessed to identify vulnerable populations facing disproportionate impacts linked to equity factors, and to establish future intervention opportunities. Stakeholders were consulted to create inclusion criteria for topics reported in the burden documents. Data on diseases and injuries were compiled and presented graphically with an accompanying narrative, both individually and in context with related diseases and injuries. Developing burden documents to inform the SHA led to increased communication and collaboration between divisions at the Health Department and with stakeholders. The infectious disease and injury burden documents created as part of the SHA process led to a better, more in-depth understanding of what impacts Vermonters in terms of these two relevant and important topic areas. This increased understanding of the burden of injury and infectious disease will allow for the development of an appropriate and responsive SHIP.