We can improve opioid use outcomes in every community by investing in evidence-based opioid care. Which places might need the most investment? Mapping the epidemic’s latest economic costs shows the potential need for better care resources within each locality.
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The Virginia Wellbeing Dashboard uses community data to predict local mental health and substance use disorder outcomes – and explores how we can improve wellbeing through supporting healthier environments for all. The Dashboard can inform systemic, evidence-based approaches to improving outcomes across our communities.
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AmeriCorps Office of Research and Evaluation in collaboration with Serve Virginia is partnering with research grantees Virginia Tech and VCU Center on Society and Health to implement a series of PhotoVoice projects with AmeriCorps Seniors and AmeriCorps State and National service members across Virginia.
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With support from the Northern Virginia Health Foundation, the Center has completed many projects focused on gaps in life expectancy across census tracts, as well as the roots of those gaps, in the Northern Virginia / D.C. Metro area. Read our latest report, Lost Opportunities: The Persistence of Disadvantaged Neighborhoods in Northern Virginia.
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The Stakeholder Engagement in Question Development and Prioritization method, better known as the SEED Method, is a multi-stakeholder approach to engaging communities in research, problem solving, and action planning. The SEED Method provides a framework for collaborative research and action planning that can be scaled up or down depending on project resources and goals.
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To better understand public perception of issues surrounding place-based determinants of health, and identify possible communications opportunities to raise the profile of the importance of place-based determinants, the Center conducted a series of focus groups for the Nova Institute for Health.
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Everyone should have the opportunity to live a healthy life. The Healthy Places Index combines community characteristics into a single indexed HPI Score, produced at the neighborhood level. These HPI scores can be compared across neighborhoods to paint an overall picture of health and well-being in each community. Read more below about how the HPI was applied to different communities around the country.
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The health of our community plays a key role in our personal well-being, which is why the work that community health workers and advocates do is so impactful. With funding from the Wright Center, the Center on Society and Health and Initiatives of Change created an interactive story featuring Richmond’s community health workers and advocates.
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The number of deaths from COVID-19 reported in the news during since March may be underestimating the pandemic's actual death toll. From March 1st, 2020 to January 2nd, 2021, the United States saw 522,368 excess deaths, but only 72% of those were attributed to COVID-19. The other 28% were linked to other causes such as heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.
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A brief based on a previous center study, “Uneven Opportunities: How Conditions for Wellness Vary Across the Metropolitan Washington Region”, that examined the health of the community at the census tract level, focusing on life expectancy and the factors that shape health.
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A project, led by the National Collaborative for Health Equity, to develop a resource to chart progress towards health equity at the national, state, and local level. As part of this project, the Center is providing data and research support for the Texas Health Institute.
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A collaboration with the Urban Institute, the project is a detailed analysis comparing states on dozens of health measures and examining connections between 39 health outcomes and 123 drivers of health across five domains: health systems, health behaviors, socioeconomic conditions, the environment, and public policies and spending. Findings were published in a series of reports.
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Media-friendly maps depicting dramatic differences in life expectancy across small distances in U.S. cities and rural areas. Building on an earlier set of five maps released for the RWJF Commission to Build a Healthier America, the Center produced maps for 21 additional cities and rural areas across the country, including New York City; Richmond, VA; Chicago; Philadelphia; Tulsa, OK; and Detroit. Maps were released throughout 2015 and 2016.
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A report examining social determinants of health in metropolitan Richmond, utilizing data from a variety of sources, and including findings from research conducted by Engaging Richmond. The report was released in April, 2016.
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A research and outreach effort to raise awareness about the association between education and health among policymakers and stakeholders in national, state, and local settings. Related resources include issue briefs, videos, and online data about the health and economic implications of educational attainment.
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A community-academic partnership based in Richmond's East End, employing mixed methods research to explore the social and environmental factors that influence health.
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Healthy Communities for Youth is a community-based intervention that focuses on youth violence prevention and education with at-risk neighborhoods within Richmond.
Read MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the many gaps in today’s public health and health data infrastructure, particularly in regards to people of color and other marginalized populations, and it showed us the many ways in which these challenges perpetuate health inequities. To work towards better health data systems, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation established the National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems.
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A project to better understand the impact of the opioid epidemic, funded by The Virginia Department of Health Division of Prevention and Health Promotion, by assessing the economic repercussions of opioid-related deaths.
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Past projects (2007-2020) including work under our former name, the VCU Center on Human Needs.
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