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Who’s Leading the Leading Health Indicators?
The Leading Health Indicators were selected to communicate high-priority health issues and actions that can be taken to address them. To highlight these issues, Healthy People will be focusing on one LHI topic each month in 2012.
“Who’s Leading the Leading Health Indicators?” will provide an overview of the LHI topic, noting the most recent data and trends, and showcasing states, communities, or organizations that are addressing the LHIs in innovative ways.
Explore the implementation stories below to learn how people across the nation are addressing these priority health topics.
Reducing Violent Crime and Invigorating Communities Through Greening Vacant Lots
Vacant, overgrown lots negatively affect neighborhood economies and create a permissible environment for crime. To combat these public health and safety concerns, the Philadelphia LandCare Program (PLP) “greens” vacant lots by converting the spaces into areas with high visual impact, by clearing trash, planting grass and trees, and encircling the site with a low wooden fence.
To determine program effectiveness, PLP provides data to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere to assess PLP’s impact on crime, as well as resident health and well-being.
A recent study1 demonstrated that greening was associated with a significant reduction in gun assaults from 1999 to 2008. Over this time period, 4,436 vacant lots (7.8 million square feet) were greened. This study also showed that vacant lot greening was associated with residents reporting less stress and more exercise in select sections of the city, indicating that greening may improve resident health and quality of life. Other cities are adopting PLP to improve neighborhood livability, public health, and safety.
Helping Improve Access to Health Services
On Chicago's South Side, emergency departments are overwhelmed, often seeing patients who present for non-emergency medical conditions.
To reduce the burden on emergency rooms and better serve this community, the University of Chicago Medical Center's Urban Health Initiative created the South Side Healthcare Collaborative (SSHC), a network of more than 30 community-based health centers and five local hospitals.
SSHC helps families by providing a coordinated network of primary care physicians who oversee patient care — offering better opportunities to prevent and treat illnesses before they turn into emergencies. A key part of SSHC is its "Medical Home Connection Program," which schedules emergency department patients for appointments with a primary care doctor in one of its affiliated health centers. Since 2009, almost 14,000 patients have been educated in the emergency department about the importance of having a regular source of primary care — and more than half of those patients have made follow-up appointments at SSHC clinics.
Disclaimer: Reference in these bulletins to any specific product, process, service, organization, or company does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by the U.S. Government or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
1 Branas CC, Cheney RA, MacDonald JM, et al. A difference-in-differences analysis of health, safety, and greening vacant urban space. Am J Epidemiol . 2011 Dec 1;174(11):1296–1306. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwr273. Epub 2011 Nov 11.
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