Cottage Health Debuts Free Population Health Data & Evaluation Tools
Cottage Health has debuted a "Population Health Learning Lab" to provide resources and interactive tools to help support the work of health or health-related organizations and assist them in targeting and evaluating programs for specific areas of need. The Population Health Learning Lab includes Cottage Data2Go and the Evaluation Toolkit.
Cottage Data2Go is a free, interactive online mapping and data tool created in partnership with Measure of America of the Social Science Research Council. It brings together federal, state, county, and community data on a broad range of issues critical to the well-being of all Santa Barbara County residents. The tool provides a view of the specific health needs by demographics (population type), geography (down to census tract) and health outcome or influencer (including social factors).
Created to provide reliable, up-to-date information on community assets and challenges, Cottage Data2Go is designed as a resource to aid community members, leaders, businesses, government agencies, and community-based organizations in crafting effective solutions, developing policies and services, and advocating for change. In community work, data drives decision making, and Cottage Data2Go brings data together to help showcase successes and bring light to opportunities for promoting equity, especially among the most vulnerable in our community.
Cottage Health's Evaluation Toolkit supports community or clinical programs and collaborations in working toward a population health approach. Based on feedback from a community-wide Listening Tour in 2016, Cottage Health focused on developing this resource to help community-based partners work together to define what success would look like and measure it using the same tools and language. Community leaders can learn about each step in evaluating a program, download worksheets to complete the step, and follow a Case Study example.
The Toolkit supports a vision of a healthy community by equipping nonprofit organizations as they assess community needs, strengthen programs, adopt promising practices, and work in closer alignment with other organizations to achieve common goals.
For more information, visit www.cottagehealth.org/population-health/.
