Along with Golareh Agha, Ph. D from San Antonio Metro Health, CINow’s Natalia Rodriguez presented at the NACCHO 360 summer conference in Detroit, Michigan (July 2024). Their session focused on the importance of cross-sector collaboration and advancing social determinants of health (SDOH). A key barrier they highlighted was the lack of actionable data and local data capacity, or a community’s ability to access and use data to understand and improve population outcomes. The presentation opened with an overview of seven core components of local data capacity and included concrete examples of how their two organizations and cross-sector partners collaborate around data to protect and improve the public health of a large city with a predominantly Hispanic population. Notably, their session offered practical advice and feasible steps for strengthening community data capacity to support Public Health 3.0**.
The conference also featured a poster session titled “Using Partnerships to Embed Community Perspectives and Equity into Surveillance Systems: Lessons from Bexar County, Texas for Improving Measurement of Social Determinants of Health” authored by Natalia Rodriguez (MPH) and Laura McKieran (DrPH), and presented by Natalia. The poster session highlighted key lessons from our work with the CDC Foundation project (learn more about that project here).
*NACCHO 360 – NACCHO 360 is an annual conference organized by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). It brings together public health professionals, leaders, and stakeholders from local health departments, government agencies, and other sectors to share knowledge, discuss current challenges, and explore innovative solutions to public health issues.
**Public Health 3.0 – is a concept and framework developed by NACCHO to emphasize, “collaborative engagement and actions that directly affect the social determinants of health inequity.” (Learn more here)
