New Health Equity Tool Tracks How the Pandemic is Affecting Communities

"Researchers are using data to map the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact across the nation and illustrate its disproportionately devastating toll on Black and Latino communities.

Called Health Equity Tracker, the new tool is designed to aid policymakers and leaders in identifying existing racial health inequities so that they can shift resources to the hardest hit communities.

The Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta launched the tracker, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation joined a consortium of funders — including Gilead Sciences, Google.org and CDC Foundation — to support its development.

“The Health Equity Tracker is an important resource for communities, decision makers and researchers to understand and close the racial gap in health outcomes and ensure that all communities have equitable access to health services,” says T’Pring Westbrook, a senior research associate at the Casey Foundation.

The tracker maps the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the United States by race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and other social and political determinants of health. Users can customize searches at the county, state, territory or national level..."
Pandemic and communities 

Disability-Inclusive Communities

"July 26, 2019 marks the 29th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a civil rights law that promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities at work, school, or other community settings. Learn what CDC is doing to include people with disabilities in public health research and health promotion activities.

An estimated 61 million people are living with a disability in the United States,¹ and many people will experience a disability at some time during the course of their lives. Disabilities limit how a child or adult functions. Limitations may include difficulty walking or climbing stairs; hearing; seeing; or concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.

Enacted on July 26, 1990, the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are to promote equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for people with disabilities, as well as protect individuals with disabilities from discrimination. The ADA has made a positive difference in the lives of people with disabilities by providing better access to buildings, transportation, and employment; however, challenges remain with access to health care, as well as inclusion of people with disabilities in health promotion and disease prevention programs.¹

Additionally, people with disabilities continue to face significant differences in health compared to people who do not have disabilities. For example:

• Adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or cancer than adults without disabilities.²
• Adults with disabilities are more likely to smoke, to have obesity, and to be physically inactive than adults without disabilities.³
• Women with disabilities are less likely to have received a mammogram in the previous 2 years than women without disabilities..."
  Disability inclusion

Community HealthSim

"The Community HealthSim is a violence prevention tool on CDC’s VetoViolence website. This game-like experience demonstrates the connections between violence and community issues, such as struggling businesses and schools, overcrowded jails, and long wait hours in the emergency room.

The simulation puts you in the driver’s seat of Vetoville. You can explore the town from the perspective of a “special advisor”—brought in to determine how to spend the town’s limited resources to improve the quality of life for everyone who lives there..."

Community HealthSim

Building Trust Between Communities and Local Police

"Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and around the country have grabbed the attention of the nation and the world, and have highlighted the importance of strong, collaborative relationships between local police and the communities that they protect.

Today, the Administration announced new steps we’re taking to strengthen the relationships between law enforcement agencies and the communities they are obligated to protect and serve, including:

• Advancing the use of body worn cameras and promoting proven community policing initiatives
• Creating a new task force to promote expansion of the community-oriented policing model, which encourages strong relationships between law enforcement and the communities that they serve as a proven method of fighting crime
• Reforming how the federal government equips state and local law enforcement – particularly with military-style equipment.." 
• Communities and local-police

The Information Needs of Communities:the Changing Media Landscape in an Broadband Age.
"...This report looks not only at the changing face of media, but at the relevant policy and regulatory situation, including the FCC’s own track record. Our basic conclusion: with the media landscape shifting as fast as it has been, some current regulations are out of sync with the information needs of communities and the fluid nature of modern local media markets..."