Health Equity

The UW ICTR Neighborhood Health Partnerships Program (NHP) is excited to announce the launch of their latest ZIP code level report, the Sociodemographic Profile Report.

To make sociodemographic information easily accessible and comparable across geographies, NHP has launched a new report that provides information on the social determinants of health at the ZIP code level. This report uses U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) data to provide additional context about living conditions and demographics for most ZIP codes in Wisconsin.

HIP Investigator, Dr. Jen Weiss and Matt Gigot will be presenting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Population Health Sciences Monday Seminar Series on 4/11. Their presentation: Measuring and Addressing Health Disparities Through a Statewide Quality Improvement Collaborative will address important topics on health disparities. To view the full details of the seminar, click here or view below.

When: Monday, April 11^th, 12:00-1:00 pm

Where: Health Services Learning Center (HSLC), Room 1335

The Medical College of Wisconsin’s Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Wisconsin Partnership Program have announced a joint three-year, $3 million grant to launch an expansive new statewide partnership that will study, measure and recommend solutions for health inequities across the state of Wisconsin.

The 2020 Wisconsin Health Disparities Report: Rural and Urban Populations was released at the WCHQ Health Disparities Assembly meeting on November 12, 2020. The assembly featured urban and rural perspectives on health disparities from experts in their fields: HIP Investigator, Jennifer Weiss, MD, MS and Matt Gigot, MPH, presented the findings from the 2020 report and Malia Jones, PhD, MPH presented her research on social and spatial determinants of health at the population level.

Dr. Edmond Ramly has been named one of the 2021 ICTR-CAP Stakeholder & Patient Engaged Research Pilot Awards for his Addressing disparities in the primary care of chronic conditions in the COVID-19 era: A tool for clinics to map local barriers to known strategies project.

A new publication by Dr. Christie Bartels was recently featured in a press release by Wiley. Although smoking increases symptoms and health risks for patients with rheumatic diseases, interventions to help patients quit are rarely available at rheumatology clinics.

In this article, authors implemented a rheumatology staff-driven protocol, Quit Connect, to increase the rate of electronic referrals (e-referrals) to free, state-run tobacco quit lines (TQL). The group found that implementing Quit Connect in rheumatology clinics was feasible and improved referrals to a state-run TQL.

View the article

COVID-19 vaccination may be off to a slow start, but soon supply levels will rise and processes will be streamlined. Thoughtfully designed outreach with well-crafted messages will be of the utmost importance to ensure enough people are vaccinated to put us on the path to population immunity and long-term protection from the disease. As decision-makers plan and implement vaccination campaigns, understanding the risk of death (mortality) from COVID-19 and potential barriers to vaccine uptake by ZIP code will be valuable in building effective communication and outreach plans in each community.

COVID-19 vaccination may be off to a slow start, but soon supply levels will rise and processes will be streamlined. Thoughtfully designed outreach with well-crafted messages will be of the utmost importance to ensure enough people are vaccinated to pave the way to population immunity and long-term protection from the disease.

Where people live, and the health-related characteristics of their communities, has a significant impact on the health and health outcomes of residents. Differences in health care quality and outcomes for rural and urban populations has been a focus of national priority and attention.

Researchers at UW-Madison distinguished the unique health-related characteristics of rural and urban ZIP codes across Wisconsin to identify important factors (e.g. health care providers, insurance status, poverty) that contribute to health, resulting in six groups of rural and urban ZIP codes in Wisconsin: Rural Underserved, Rural, Rural Advantaged, Urban Underserved, Urban, and Urban Advantaged.

The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ), in collaboration with Health Innovation Program, developed the Wisconsin Health Disparities: Rural and Urban Populations Report to help inform and accelerate programs that are working to eliminate disparities. The 2020 report identifies where disparities in health outcomes and care exist in rural and urban areas in Wisconsin by using a unique categorization system developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin Health Innovation Program (HIP). Funding for this report was provided by the Wisconsin Partnership Program, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.