Experts Discuss Improving Health through City Policy

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On Tuesday, June 29, the Department of Health Administration and Policy’s Health Policy Collaborative hosted a panel titled, “City Policy: Forming Unique Partnerships to Improve Health.” This panel, the third in the Health Policy Summer Series, was moderated by Alison Cuellar, PhD, director of the Health Policy Collaborative and professor.  

Panelists emphasized the importance of aligning the efforts of communities, governments and organizations to improve health outcomes through local policy. “We literally cannot do our work without local partners and our national partners,” remarked panelist Catherine Patterson from CityHealth, underscoring the importance of community partnerships to improve urban health.

The experts on the panel represented a variety of sectors moving toward the shared goal of fostering healthy communities in Virginia and beyond:

  • Catherine Patterson is the Co-Executive Director of City Health, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente designed to advance evidence-based policy solutions to help people and communities prosper.
  • Captain Kimberly Elenberg is the Modeling and Analytics Lead at the US Department of Defense COVID Task Force who works toward ensuring the well-being of all military service members through internal policies.
  • William Hazel serves as the Senior Deputy Executive Director at the Claude Moore Foundation who formerly worked in the Office of the Provost at Mason.

Panelists covered topics related to the following:

  • CityHealth’s 9 policy recommendations to cities to improve health
  • City governments’ on-going efforts to adopt evidence-based policy and receive recognition
  • The well-being of military service members, reaching beyond military bases and into local communities using a data-driven approach
  • Partnerships between the Department of Defense, federal sister agencies, local governments and national health-related coalitions
  • The Collective Impact Model and how it can be applied to locales in the Commonwealth of Virginia

View the full webinar recording here.

Upcoming events in the Health Policy Summer Series include:

Tuesday, July 13: 1:00pm-2:00pm EST

Top Priorities for Access and Affordability

  • Post-pandemic Primary Care, What Next?  Shawn Martin, Executive Vice President & Chief Executive Officer, American Academy of Family Physicians 
  • Marketplace Coverage, What Next? Jeannette Thornton, Senior Vice President of Product, Employer, and Commercial Policy, America's Health Insurance Plans
  • Balancing Value with Affordability and Access Post COVID:  Peter Bach, PhD, Director of Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY

Tuesday, July 27: 1:00pm-2:00pm EST

Public Health, Lessons Learned

Moderator: Michael Fraser, MPH, CEO, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials

Panelists:

  • Lessons from the National Vaccination Effort: Bechara Choucair, MD, Vaccinations Coordinator at The White House
  • Local Lessons from a Frontline Health Official: Reuben Varghese, MD, MPH, Public Health Director, Arlington County, Virginia  
  • Manufacturer Perspectives, US and Global: Sharon Lamberton, MS, Deputy Vice President, PhRMA