Schroeder Center Reviews Health Data for the Historic Triangle
The Schroeder Center for Health Policy is pleased to share a recent report prepared by Jennifer M. Mellor, Elizabeth Vestal, and Carrie Dolan, entitled, “Health Outcomes and Health Determinants in the Historic Triangle,” that presents information on the current health of the Historic Triangle. The report interprets existing health data for the City of Williamsburg, James City County, and York County (defined as the Historic Triangle community) from the County Health Rankings Report, the Virginia Atlas of Health, and data from various other organizations such as Virginia Health Information, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Virginia Department of Health.
There are dozens of health measures available in existing publications that are often not accompanied by a narrative or explanation. The main goal of this report is to enhance the abilities of policymakers and other essential community stakeholders to use quantitative data from the Historic Triangle region to make decisions about policies, programs, and practices that affect the community's health. This report is a useful tool for policymakers and other community stakeholders because it assembles, reviews, and interprets key measures of health and health determinants for the three Historic Triangle localities.
This report includes a narrative that seeks to: 1) compare the health of the populations of Williamsburg, James City County, and York County to the health of the Virginia population as a whole, 2) compare the health of the populations of the three individual localities in the Historic Triangle to one another, 3) look for trends in population health over time, and 4) identify health issues where additional measures may be useful and where additional steps may be valuable for the community.
In addition to this report, the Schroeder Center has prepared two research briefs to supplement the full report. “Measuring the Health of the Historic Triangle” summarizes key findings on what available data can tell us about the health of the Historic Triangle and “A Guide to Community Health Data in Virginia” details the types of available community health data and provides an explanation of what users should know about using community health data.
This research was conducted as part of a generous grant from the Williamsburg Health Foundation.
