Transcript Using Child Health Data Effectively

Using Child Health Data
Effectively
Child Health Policy Research
Symposium
Child Health Data
• The link between researchers, practitioners,
policy-makers is most frequently “data” and
this creates major challenges:
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Who decides what data will be gathered?
Are the data reliable and unbiased?
From whom are the data valuable/meaningful?
How are the data communicated and used?
Who can make sense of the data?
Informing Reform
• Many of the questions that policy-makers will
need have been answered (e.g., the benefits
of health insurance), many haven’t (e.g., the
best ways to control costs fairly).
Purpose of the Session
• Discuss health care data from the perspectives
of a data producer and data user, and see how
we can better merge link them.
Center for Community Health Studies
• Engaged in a 4-year evaluation of Children’s
Health Initiatives co-funded by TCE and F5,
designed to evaluate a entire initiative.
• How to collect data that answers scientific,
practice, and policy questions (and notably
meets the needs of our funders)?
New Data Sources
• Our study has worked to create several new
data sources that will be helpful at local and
state policy levels:
• Detailed county enrollment data for Medi-Cal, Healthy
Families, and Healthy Kids programs.
• State and county-level data on potentially preventable
hospitalizations for children (OSHPD).
• Detailed empirical, historical data on public insurance
program outreach/enrollment strategies.
Statewide Survey of Healthy Kids
• Lastly, we are currently collecting survey data
on children enrolled in Healthy Kids programs
(established vs. newly enrolled): goal=4,000.
• Detailed data on child health, access to care,
quality of care (particularly medical home)
most topics are comparable to CHIS or NHIS.
• Results available in mid-July and should help
to inform TCE’s place-based funding strategy.