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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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GIH Health Policy Update Newsletter

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.

Expanding Impact Through Evaluation

Foundations support evaluations for a variety of reasons: to measure impact and monitor program performance; to strengthen program performance by providing feedback to grantees and foundation staff; and to promote broader learning by grantees, the foundation, and the nonprofit community at large.

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Behavioral Health for All

Behavioral health conditions, which include both mental health and substance-use disorders, are among the biggest health problems our country faces. Roughly 50 percent of the population will be affected by these conditions at some point in their lives.

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Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Reforming School Discipline Policies to Improve Children’s Success

n recent years, Atlantic deliberately honed its investments and focused its grantmaking on a small number of big bets with potential for significant impact. One of these priorities was the over-use of “zero tolerance” suspensions, arrests, and expulsions, and their role in pushing children of color into the justice system.

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Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Building Our Way to Better Health

Kaiser Permanente of Georgia’s Community Benefit program has invested a total of $5 million since 2010 in Atlanta’s largest, most dynamic urban redevelopment project – the Atlanta BeltLine.

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Gail Christopher to Be Honored with Terrance Keenan Award

Gail Christopher, Vice President for Policy and Senior Advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will receive GIH’s 2015 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy.

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Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Building the Evidence: Investing in Research Supporting the Need for Healthy and Active Schools

Those leading our education system today face an enormous amount of pressure, from funding issues to curriculum changes, from absenteeism to state assessment scores. With so much to consider and so much to fit into each school day, leaders are often forced to make decisions that de-prioritize an important aspect of a child’s development: physical activity. Following discussions with numerous stakeholders, the Kansas Health Foundation found that a critical missing piece in making the case for the importance of physical activity at school was timely, state-specific data linking student fitness and academics.

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