Beyond the Rankings: What Four Decades of KIDS COUNT Have Taught Me About Why Data Matter
For more than three decades, through the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® project, decisionmakers and communities have had access to reliable national, state, and local data to improve outcomes for all children, young people, and families in this country. KIDS COUNT comprises the foundation’s national KIDS COUNT publications—the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book and periodic reports such as Race for Results; the KIDS COUNT Data Center, a resource for year-round national, state, and local data; and the KIDS COUNT Network of state-based partner organizations that help policymakers, advocates, journalists, and community leaders understand and use data to make informed decisions.
Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy: Countering Bias and Promoting Care
Most pregnancy-related deaths in North Carolina are preventable. Yet mental health conditions, including overdose and suicide, remain the leading cause of pregnancy-related death. For health care leaders, that reality demands a closer look at how we identify, treat, and support pregnant and postpartum patients with opioid use disorder.
Preventing Domestic Violence by Reaching People Who Cause Harm
The research involved a landscape scan of Cook County, Illinois’ policies, funding, and services for people who cause harm with a goal of engaging the stakeholders and providers doing this work as well as survivors and those who receive services to identify barriers, challenges, and strengths of domestic violence prevention programs. The research examined Partner Abuse Intervention Programs (PAIP) in particular, a standard intervention for people who cause harm that is overseen by the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Post-Overdose Response Teams: A Community-Based Approach to Public Safety
Recent changes in the federal policy landscape have created new questions for communities working to address substance use disorder (SUD), mental health needs, and housing instability. In this evolving environment, philanthropy, in collaboration with community-based organizations and local governments, has an important role to play in supporting evidence-based responses to overdose and mental health emergencies that improve access to care, strengthen community wellbeing, and uplift public health while avoiding unnecessary criminal legal outcomes.
GIH Health Policy Update Newsletter
The Latest
An Exclusive Resource for Funding Partners
The Health Policy Update is a newsletter produced in collaboration with Leavitt Partners and Trust for America’s Health. Drawing on GIH’s policy priorities outlined in our policy agenda and our strategic objective of increasing our policy and advocacy presence, the Health Policy Update provides GIH Funding Partners with a range of federal health policy news.
Remembering Leila May Polintan (Bugno)
GIH Board and staff mourn the death of Leila Polintan, our communications director. Leila’s courage and grace in the face of her battle with cancer were an example for all of us. We will miss her smiling face, infectious laugh, and vibrant spirit.
Adaptive Leadership: The Next Requirement for Sustainable Community Health Improvements?
Funders have an obligation to go beyond providing programmatic or operational funding. They must play a larger role if they are to contribute to meaningful and sustained change and responsibly steward the resources in their trust.
A Healthy Public Needs More Than Public Health: Lessons for Addressing Substance Use
The longstanding invisibility of substance use disorders simply cannot continue if we truly want to improve communities. We have a window of opportunity to make great strides if physical and behavioral health policymakers, advocates, and foundations work together.
In Memory of Andy Hyman
The field of health philanthropy lost one of its greatest champions when Andy Hyman of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation passed away on February 25, 2015.
The Health Care Neighborhood: Philanthropy’s Role in Aging Well
Many primary care physicians do not feel confident in their capacity to meet their patients’ social needs, and they believe this impedes their ability to provide quality care. Despite evidence that social determinants such as education, employment, and economics can influence health outcomes, a service coordination gap remains.

