Tools & Resources
Mapping Life Expectancy
This project, run by the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health, has created a series of maps that prominently display life expectancy values alongside common geographic landmarks such as subway stops and highway exits. This is an example of how community development and health professionals can team up to tell powerful stories about social determinants of health...
Building Healthy Places Toolkit
The Building Healthy Places Toolkit, from Urban Land Institute, includes 21 evidence-based recommendations related to physical activity, food and water, and the environment. This tool can be found in the Community Development guide under...
What Works for Health: Strategies to Improve Rural Health
What Works for Health: Strategies to Improve Rural Health outlines key steps toward building healthy communities – rural, urban, and anywhere in between – along with some specific policies and programs that can improve health. This report highlights selected strategies from What Works for Health.
Health Gaps Reports
These reports (from CHR&R) help answer the question: Why is there so much difference in the health of residents in one county compared to other counties in the same state? The reports explore how wide gaps are throughout each state and what is driving those differences.
Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens
Blending experience and candid advice from grantmakers, this guide (from GrantCraft) explores how a racial equity lens can help you scan your field or community, cultivate new leaders, encourage creative approaches, get people talking, and nourish change inside your own foundation. This tool can be found in the...
Greater Fall River 2014-2019 Action Plan for Improving Health
This Action Plan illustrates how 2013 RWJF Culture of Health Prize-winner, Fall River, MA Partners for a Healthy Community uses the County Health Rankings model as an organizing tool for their community plan. A link to this plan can be found in the...
How Can We Help Our Grantees Strengthen Their Capacity for Evaluation?
This tool highlights suggestions from foundations, including assessing a foundation's own capacity for evaluation; encouraging a sense of ownership among grantees around the evaluation process; and combining group-based and one-on-one training. This link can be found in the Philanthropy &...
Hernando, MS
The 2011 County Health Rankings classified Desoto County as the healthiest county in Mississippi for health outcomes and the fifth-healthiest county for health factors, with lower unemployment rates, higher education rates and greater access to healthy food compared to the rest of the state. Yet much more work needs to be done to improve the health of Desoto County, as one-third of its adults are obese and Mississippi, overall, has the highest obesity rates in the nation.
San Bernardino County, CA
The 2011 County Health Rankings ranked San Bernardino County—which spans more than 20,000 square miles and a population of more than 2 million—50th out of 56 California counties in health factors like physical environment, social and economic factors, health behaviors and clinical care.
But initial disappointment over its low ranking didn’t prevent the San Bernardino County Health Department from seeing the County Health Rankings as an opportunity to strengthen its current health improvement initiatives and persuade policymakers of the need for change.