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.

Doing a Lot with a Little: The Gulf Coast Fund

“Doing a Lot with a Little” is an occasional series of the GIH Bulletin showcasing small foundations that have creatively leveraged resources to achieve meaningful change.

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Making Money in the Nonprofit Sector: Social Enterprises to Support Missions

During the economic downturn, America’s social sector organizations are rising to the challenge. One way in which organizations are investing in a more sustainable future is through social enterprise. The Social Enterprise Alliance (2009) defines a social enterprise as “an organization or venture that achieves its primary social or environmental mission using business methods.”

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Initiatives in Education, Economic Development Present Challenges, Yield Big Rewards

The Rapides Foundation is a health care legacy dating back to 1994. The foundation’s grantmaking focus has always addressed traditional health care and health promotion priorities. We have funded medical training and programs that help people get access to medication and launched programs that helped communities fund walking trails and playgrounds.

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Expanding the Circle of Allies

Many of us have been investigating and working to reduce health disparities for decades. And we have seen the trend lines like writing on the wall. An equation of the health decisions we each make, plus the environment in which we make them, has added up to a nation where we are not nearly as healthy as we could be.

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Collaboration Among Local Public Health Departments Preparing for Accreditation

The Kansas Health Foundation believes that all residents of Kansas deserve equal levels of public health protection and access to services regardless of where they live in the state. In partnership with the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments (KALHD), the foundation has worked to explore how regional collaboration among local health departments might strengthen these departments and support their efforts to become accredited.

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A National Foundation Undertakes a Regional Strategy in the South

The Health Reform Program of the Public Welfare Foundation supports advocacy so that the voices of the people served by the health care system can be informed and effective. Poverty, health disparities, and underfunded advocacy capacity describe the South.

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