About 2020 Local Health Department of the Year Award
NACCHO’s vision is health, equity, and security for all people in their communities. Local health departments work daily to realize this vision through their broad mandate for disease prevention, health promotion, and health protection. The Local Health Department (LHD) of the Year Award is intended to recognize outstanding work conducted by LHDs around the nation. It is an opportunity to share the success of our colleagues and celebrate their achievements in the national spotlight of NACCHO’s annual conference.
The theme for the 2020 LHD of the Year Award is, “Raising the Reach of Public Health.” 2020 Local Health Department of the Year Award Cross-sectoral collaboration is the cornerstone of effectively improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities in communities throughout the nation. Any health department, regardless of size can use collaboration to improve outcomes and reduce disparities over time. As an example, when LHDs serve as the Chief Health Strategists in their communities, they can strengthen their local governmental public health infrastructure to better leverage resources to prevent death, disease, and disability; address emerging threats to health security, and eliminate the social and structural injustices that result in health disparities. The deadline to submit applications is May 10, 2020 at 11:59 PST.
Eligibility
This award is open only to active (dues-paying) members of NACCHO whose memberships are in good standing. If you are unsure of your membership status, contact membership@naccho.org or call 877- 533-1320.
Criteria
Applicants must describe an identified, specific public health issue in their community and the combination of strategies they employed to address that issue, with emphasis on the partnerships that were developed and/or activated to strengthen the impact of the initiative/response and the public health outcomes. A winning application will outline how a broad base for action was built, over what period of time, with which people or groups, and whether the collaborative strengths and resource remain in place in place are being used for other improvements or issues. A successful application will also include examples of building trust between the local health department, stakeholders, and other community partners to effect real, lasting change that brings people together to solve health problems and improve population health.Examples of health department approaches and activities are presented below.
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Highlight strategies that identify formal and informal partners and stakeholders, develop new partnerships, build consensus, and align resources to achieve shared goals to improve population health and public health overall; demonstrate the integration of evidence-based practices in the approaches taken that derive from scientific research as well as public health practice informed evidence that reduce or eliminate poor social and economic conditions for marginalized groups in a community;
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Enhance public health system transformation with community, business sector, and other stakeholders through coordinated efforts to identify and address issues affecting community health;
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Explain what has been accomplished or changed through local health department involvement to transform the healthcare system in ways that impact public health outcomes, (e.g., serving on population health councils for State Innovation Model initiatives, and providing community outreach and referral services to link community members to health exchanges);
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Explain what has been changed in the delivery of clinical care in the community’s health care system with emphasis on strengthening the preventive aspects of medicine, disease control measures, and collection and use of data to effectively target and deliver health and public health services;
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Describe successful research agenda development AND community involvement and direction of research, what techniques and partners have been involved and what has been learned and shared with the larger regional, state, and national communities through “gray” or refereed publications or presentations. Provide citations where available.
The Application Process
The successful LHD will be a current, active (dues paying) member of NACCHO. Click here to apply
- Awards will be based on the quality of the application and achievement(s) described determined solely in the discretion of NACCHO.
- Separate awards will be granted to LHDs based on population size:
- up to 25,000
- 25,000 - 99,999
- 100,000–399,999
- 400,000–749,999
- 750,000 +
- Up to two awardees will be selected for each LHD size category. Award recipients will be notified in the spring and will be recognized at the 2020 NACCHO 360 Conference.
- NEW FOR 2020: Application fees for this award have been eliminated. All winning LHDs will receive one complimentary staff registration to attend the NACCHO 360 Conference. In addition, the winning local health department(s) serving a population size under 25,000) will receive a modest travel stipend, provided with generous support from the Past Presidents Council.
For more information, please contact awards@naccho.org.