DCHM Documentation
Introduction
It is important that the DC Health Matters site provides balanced information on a broad range of topics affecting the health of our community and highlights the assets in our community. These editorial guidelines are written to provide background on the different features of the site, how the content of the site is selected and managed, and to describe the governing body of the site.
Governing Body
The DC Health Matters Advisory Board serves as an advisory group for the DC Health Matters website. The primary role of the DC Health Matters Advisory Board is to guide the planning process and to, determine practices, local indicator selection, data collection, data analysis, priority setting, development of tracking measures, marketing strategies, and public input.
The DC Health Matters Advisory Board reviews the featured material and strives to ensure balanced content. The DC Health Matters Advisory Board and the DC Health Matters website do not endorse or advocate any political initiatives or political figures.
Community Indicator Data
Eight topic areas provide valuable measures of the health of our communities. For each indicator, the actual value is shown as well as information about how DC compares to other geographic areas (the red-yellow-green gauge) or how we are changing over time (green or red up and down arrows) or how we compare to a national or state average (blue/white or tri-color gradation gauge). While we may be doing better on some indicators than other areas or compared to a state or national average value, that does not mean that we should not be working on improving all indicators. We describe each indicator, link to the source data, and explain what the values mean. The primary aim of the indicator system is to inform and facilitate positive change. To inform, we must provide accurate, reliable and timely data at a geographically meaningful level. To ensure accuracy and reliability, the indicator system uses data sources that meet the following criteria:
• Validated methodology for data collection and analysis
• Regular, scheduled publication of findings
• Data values for small geographic areas, such as counties and postal codes that are available for all county-level locations in the U.S or locally through community partners.
Methods
Through the Healthy Communities indicator system, community members have easy access to critical information. The status of the community can be displayed in several ways that are easy to understand.
Regional Comparison Indicators
For indicators that are meaningfully displayed as an objective value that can be compared to other communities, the local value is assigned a status (green = excellent, yellow = fair, or red = poor) based on how the local value ranks in comparison to other communities. These indicators compare a community's measure to a distribution of other relevant geographies. For indicators where a high value is good, indicators are assigned green values if the value is better than or equal to the 50th percentile, yellow if the value is between the 50th percentile and the 25th percentile and red if the value is less than the 25th percentile. The median is the cut-off between the green and yellow ranking.
Regional Comparison Indicator Example: The infant mortality rate in all 3,077 U.S. counties is collected and the rate of infant mortality (number of infant deaths/100 births) is entered in a spreadsheet. The rates are ordered from lowest to highest. The 50th percentile or median value is the rate of the 1,539th value in the list of values (3,077 / 2 = 1,538.5, standard rounding rules round the number to 1,539). Often the distribution of counties within a state or other regions must be used instead of U.S. counties because the data is not available nationally. The cut-off point between yellow and red is the 75th percentile, or the 2,309th value in the list of values.
Average Comparison Indicators
For indicators that are not meaningfully displayed as an objective value (i.e. median home value) or where we do not have values for other communities, but do have a national or state mean value, the blue/white indicator dial (if direction does not matter) or tri-color dial (if direction matters) simply shows how our community compares nationally or statewide. This indicator is a useful way to present community data compared to the state or national median or mean value and allow the user to interpret the local indicator value.
Average Comparison Indicator Example: In a community the median home price is above the median home value compared to 39 other counties in the state. The fact that the local median home value is greater than the median can be interpreted in two ways, depending on the end-users perspective: If you are selling your home, high median values may be a beneficial, but if you are trying to purchase a home, high median values may be a negative.
Time Period Comparison Indicators
These indicators show how an outcome varies over a significant amount of time, a commonly accepted period in the field, as indicated in the description. These indicators have three states: getting better, getting worse or stayed the same. These indicators are typically used when distribution data is not available to calculate a comparison distribution or when trend data seem more relevant and important when compared to other locales. They are also useful to highlight when a measure compares favorably to other communities, but the measure is actually moving in the wrong direction.
Time Period Comparison Indicator Example: In Community A, the percent of the population that is overweight or obese is 50.5% and this percentage has been growing over the last three years. The yearly percentages exceed the CDC 2010 Healthy People goal for healthy weight (<40% of adult population overweight or obese), though the local value (50.5%) is still better than the median value where 61.3% of adult population is overweight or obese in the state. In this case, a time period comparison indicator can be used to show that the community trend is increasing and that there is a growing percentage of the adult population that is either overweight or obese.
Community Indicator Data Standards:
1. Data must be scientifically collected using quality research standards and/or be peer reviewed.
2. Data from academic institutions or government entities is preferred.
3. Service statistics from local agencies are not typically scientifically collected. This information can be incorporated into the site in other areas but not usually as community indicators
4. The source of the data is identified and if a conflict of interest could exist on the part of the data collector that will be clearly noted (e.g., a data collector with a commercial interest in the data).
Criteria for consideration of proposed new indicators:
1. Does it add value? (Does it fill a gap? Is it a good enough proxy measure for an area for which we want an indicator? Is it better than a current indicator?)
2. Dependable updates? (Is there the capacity for ongoing measurement?)
3. Is it scientifically valid? (Has it undergone a peer review process?)
4. Is the data available - both a value for our county and some comparison data?
Promising Practices
What is it: Databases of promising practices and articles/literature that are both initially populated by a database of national resources created by the Healthy Communities Institute. In our local communities, we have the opportunity to add local content to these sections. The sources include health departments, federal agencies, universities and community organizations.
Adding a promising practice: All Promising Practices submissions are received and reviewed by HCI and/or the DC Health Matters Advisory Board. If the Promising Practice meets HCI and DC Health Matters Advisory Board criteria, it will be added to the Promising Practices Database and marked with a ‘local’ tag as appropriate. Again, we will use the four central questions to determine appropriateness of content: Does it add value or fill a gap?? Is it valid and credible? Have the results of the proposed practice been evaluated?
The intervention must be community-focused, health-related, effective and an evidence-based practice. The research and/or evaluation process must be rigorous and the results statistically significant.
Feature Articles
What is it: On the home page, we post local feature articles and stories on topics that enhance, analyze and provide deeper understanding of the community health indicator data, potentially promising practices, and community assets. Feature articles may be as simple as linking to existing web articles about a particular issue along with a brief article that relates to local assets or indicators, or they may be written and created locally. Feature articles are generally rotated on a weekly basis in order to provide an array of stories with a local emphasis.
Adding feature articles: The site administrator, in consultation with the DC Health Matters Advisory Board and other community partners, will choose the feature articles based on what they deem important local health news.
Featured Content
What is it: On the home page, we highlight a local health program and provide relevant website and resources for that program.
Adding featured content: The site administrator, in consultation with the DC Health Matters Advisory Board and other local health leaders, will choose the featured content.
Local Resources
What is it: The local resources section provides a comprehensive community services search tool that connects residents of Washington, DC to important local health services. This section is populated with resources from 2-1-1.
Adding events: The site administrator, in consultation with the DC Health Matters Advisory Board, will add resources. The following criteria for selection of resources will be applied:
I. The following items should be included:
A. Not-for-profit and governmental agencies that provide a health or human service in Washington, DC.
B. Organizations (e.g. churches, social clubs) that offer a service to the community at large, not just their own members. Non-profit social clubs that serve the community at large are to be listed as programs under their parent organizations.
C. Hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms.
II. The following items may be included:
A. Self-help groups that are not part of a larger agency.
B. Elected state and federal officials and representatives.
C. Organizations outside Washington, DC, that provide a service not available locally.
D. Professional organizations.
E. Advocacy groups.
F. Private organizations providing a service not adequately addressed by the nonprofit sector.
III. The following will not be included in the file:
A. Private for-profit organizations unless fitting into criteria I-C or II-F.
B. Private practitioners or therapists.
C. Agencies that deny service on the basis of color, race, religion, sexual orientation, ancestry or nationality.
D. Illegal services.
E. Agencies that misrepresent their services in any way.
Advertising
All Advertising must be approved by the DC Health Matters Advisory Board (governing body).
Resources
Links to government sites, academic centers and some community-based organizations and foundations will be permitted only if the other site includes health and human services related information and data. Links will not be provided to advocacy organizations and organizations that offer or support products or services that are detrimental to health, such as tobacco products.
Website Survey
What is it: Website survey questions are non-scientific polls to gather information about how well the ‘DC Health Matters’ website is serving its audience.
Adding website survey: The site administrator will manage this tool.