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.
Foundation Collaboration: Partnering to Improve Young Children’s Oral Health
Dental disease is the single most common chronic childhood disease and is so widespread and the health effects so significant that the U.S. Surgeon General has classified dental disease as a silent epidemic (HHS 2000).
It Takes Many Villages to Create a Public Health Improvement Plan
Public health has gained attention in Colorado over the last four years as a result of a partnership that includes health foundations, the Colorado School of Public Health, the state legislature, and state and local health agencies.
Paid Sick Days: A Health Policy for Everyone
When the H1N1 pandemic broke out, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged sick people to stay home. Unfortunately, for many Americans, staying home meant losing income, losing a good shift, or worse, losing their job.
2010 Inaugural Class of the Terrance Keenan Institute Fellows Announced
Grantmakers In Health is pleased to announce that the following individuals have been selected to participate in the inaugural Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy.
The State of State Budgets
At a recent meeting of state health policymakers, California team members were asked to compare their budget problems with the Titanic’s sinking and determine which health initiatives were essential and worthy of being loaded into a lifeboat. One member quipped, “We’re just trying to figure out whom to EAT in the lifeboat!”
Philanthropy’s Response to Haiti
Learn what grantmakers and other organizations are doing in response to the disaster in Haiti.

