Nationwide 2011 County Health Rankings explore the health of Minnesota counties

Rankings by University of Wisconsin and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation offer a county-by-county snapshot of how multiple factors influence health Minnesota's counties are included in a report ranking the health of every county in each of the 50 states. The County Health Rankings, prepared by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, ranks the overall health of counties by using a standard formula to measure how healthy people are and how long they live. Counties are ranked in two categories: health outcomes and health factors (also known as health determinants). Health outcomes include the rate of people dying before age 75, the percentage of people who report being in fair or poor health and the rate of low-birth weight infants. Health factors include health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment. The rankings, which launched nationwide last year, are designed to compare the health of counties within each state; they do not compare counties in one state with counties in another state. “The County Health Rankings help everyone see that much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor's office and where we live matters to our health," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which collaborates with the University of Wisconsin on the rankings. “We hope this second annual release of County Health Rankings data will spur all sectors – government, business, community and faith-based groups, education and public health – to work together to find solutions and take action and implement programs and policy changes to improve health." The County Health Rankings are an additional tool that highlights the essential role of prevention across Minnesota. “The Rankings not only shine a light on the health of individual counties; they also demonstrate the need to include prevention in our health reform efforts," said Dr. Edward Ehlinger, Minnesota Commissioner of Health. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to make reforms that will improve the health of all Minnesotans, and we must be sure to look at upstream disease prevention and health promotion at the same time we address other aspects of health reform." Local health departments in Minnesota already do extensive measurement of the health of their communities. Minnesota's Local Public Health Act requires local health departments to conduct a comprehensive assessment and planning process every five years in order to identify public health challenges and strategies for improving health. “Our local health departments already do an excellent job measuring the health of their populations, to help them understand what they do well and where they can improve," Ehlinger added. “This is one reason why Minnesota consistently ranks as one of the healthiest states in the nation." The County Health Rankings are available for viewing at www.countyhealthrankings.org. For a list of Minnesota's local health departments, see: www.health.state.mn.us/divs/cfh/ophp/system/administration/chb.cfm

Parrot Head CPR Training

As some of you know, we have run into a specific roadblock in our work to get CPR training to all high school students in MN. That roadblock is that too many people think that CPR training is difficult and takes up to 8 weeks to complete anything significant. We of course know that with CPR Anytime people can receive quality CPR training in as little as 25 minutes!!

So, we have planned a massive public CPR training event at the State Capitol for the beginning of next session. We’re going to invite legislators, staff and the public and show everyone just how easy, fast as potentially lifesaving CPR training can be! To do this we needed to buy a whole bunch of CPR Anytime Kits in order to do the training for free. Enter our State Advocacy Committee Chair and Survivor Advocate Mark Olson! He belongs to the MN chapter of Parrotheads (Jimmy Buffet Fans) called St. Minnesomeplace - and they have a charity fundraiser every year. This year they are raising money to buy CPR Anytime Kits for our training!! We went to their fundraiser on March 26th to provide some free CPR training to their members to say thank you for supporting our work. We were very fortunate to be able to rely on our partners Gene Johnson and Ray Eiler from the MN Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors Network, who not only provided the training, but set up appointments to provide CPR trainings at some of the worksites of the attendees.

Thank you St. Minnesomeplace! Thank you Mark Olson! Thank You MN SCA Survivors Network!

1-Year Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act

The American Heart Association is a feature member of the Patient Advocacy Coalition (PAC) in Minnesota. The PAC is a group of Health Care organizations that focus on Access to Health Care for All.

On March 25th, PAC held a press conference to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by having patients and families with chronic disease tell real stories of how lack of access to health care hurt their families before the ACA or how they have already been helped by the ACA.

They told these stories to the press and to special guests Sen. Al Franken, Rep. Betty McCullum, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Tom Huntley, Rep. Erin Murphy and MDH Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger.

A Mini-Day on the Hill for Health Equity

The American Heart Association in Minnesota is a proud member of the Health Equity Working Committee (HEWC). The group consists of neighborhood and community organizations that represent Asian, Latino, African, African American, Pacific Islander, Recent Immigrant and GLBTQ populations that are concerned about Health Equity and ending Health Disparities in their communities.

On March 23rd 2011, the HEWC held their first public event: A Mini-Day on the Hill for Health Equity. The purpose of the event was to provide leadership training to community members who wanted to know more about Health Disparities, what the State of MN is doing about them and how the legislative process worked. Despite a terrible late season snow/ice storm we saw more than 50 attendees and the group heard presentations from the HEWC as well as from 6 Legislators and 2 Department of Health Staff. Following the event 17 attendees met individually with their representatives to discuss the Health of their communities while others attended a hearing of the House Health & Human Services Committee.

The day was an unprecedented success as we were assured that a group like this had never assembled at the state capitol and the attendees are already excited for a full blown Health Equity takeover of the Capitol in 2012!

American Heart Association Opposes Bill to Reduce Penalties for Selling Tobacco to Minors

Dr. Courtney Jordan Baechler (pictured), cardiologist and American Heart Association State Advocacy Committee member, testified today before the House State Government Operations Committee on HF 962. The bill would reduce penalties for businesses who sell tobacco to minors. The proponents argued that it was too onerous to suspend a business's tobacco license if they sold to a minor--state law requires temporary suspension after the THIRD TIME THE BUSINESS IS CAUGHT SELLING TO A MINOR IN A 24 MONTH PERIOD.

Dr. Baechler argued: "There is absolutely no good reason to scale back the laws that keep tobacco out of the hands of our kids." Dr. Baechler went on to inform the committee, "Nearly 90 percent of all adult smokers begin smoking while in their teens, or earlier, and two-thirds become regular, daily smokers before they reach the age of 19."

One third of current high school smokers will die prematurely from tobacco-related causes. "In Minnesota that means over 18,000 of those 56,000 kids who are current smokers will die from smoking," said Dr. Baechler.

The bill passed the State Government Operations Committee, but was referred to the Health and Human Services Reform Committee where we have a further opportunity to highlight the harms of this legislation and hopefully ensure this misguided proposal is cut short.