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Carrie Conia:
Thank you for your interest in how we are working to improve state and local public health capacities to meet Kentucky’s Public Health Transformation laws and encourage local health department accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). Kentucky’s Public Health Transformation Law requires that each local health department complete a community health assessment for the jurisdiction served. Local health departments are encouraged to adopt a performance improvement culture and utilize the PHAB standards of measures as best practices to increase foundational capabilities in pursuit of Kentucky’s Public Health Transformation goals.

The data you see here demonstrates how a collaborative, customized, and comprehensive approach can make a big impact. The Kentucky Department for Public Health partnered with Eastern Kentucky University, Shaping Our Appalachian Region, and the University of Kentucky to deliver a combination of technical assistance, training, and tools to support local health departments across the state.

Technical assistance provided over the past two years focused on completing community health assessments, community health improvement planning, and engaging communities in public health strategies. The Kentucky cohort was established to provide dedicated technical support to local health departments interested in pursuing PHAB pathways recognition or accreditation. Participants receive a mix of teaching, coaching, and mentoring, as well as technical assistance to prepare for and complete accreditation-related activities. Three Kentucky cohort participants have applied to PHAB for accreditation and are currently in the process of selecting and submitting documentation. Trainings offered are determined by local health department requests, performance management, and quality improvement top of the list, followed closely by topics to support community health assessment and improvement work. The Local Health Department Academy of Science is a national movement to develop a repository of evidence-based surveys and shared resources to promote data-driven decision-making. The Kentucky group has developed 36 templates to streamline the process for the collection and use of local-level data. The foundational health subcommittee guides the work of these collaborative initiatives, meeting quarterly to discuss progress and develop action plans for emerging technical assistance training and resource needs.

Prior to the passage of Public Health Transformation legislation, approximately half of Kentucky’s local health departments had a community health assessment. The Kentucky Department for Public Health’s Public Health Transformation dashboard is a publicly available interactive tool that showcases how this collaborative, multifaceted approach has resulted in 97% of Kentucky local health departments now having a completed Community Health Assessment.