ABOUT THE PROJECT

CHIP Vision, Goal, and Objectives

Vision:  Communities and organizations making informed, relevant decisions and engaged in activities that improve the health and safety of their citizens.

Goal:  Create a collaborative effort among public and private organizations to develop consistent, reliable sub-county data that can be used to identify and prioritize community needs and facilitate local planning and action.

Objectives:

1. Develop and disseminate a reliable set of sub-county data, determined by key leaders representing the diverse rural, urban and culturally diverse needs of the two counties, that will be valuable indicators of community health.

2. Compile, update and distribute data to all stakeholders regularly.

3. Build an additional database of information/list of sources for other data to assist local communities/organizations in planning and decision making.

4. Identify key community-wide indicators of changing health status.

5. Serve as a catalyst to engage Marion/Polk communities and organizations in taking action to meet community needs.


CHIP Rationale

National and state level data are helpful for comparison but don't help individual communities asses their unique needs. Even county-level data may prove misleading in local analysis as counties often contain a diverse assortment of populations in both rural and urban areas. Ultimately, only local-level data gives community leaders and policy makers the most understandable and relevant means to address community health. Given this reality, CHIP seeks block level/street address data that can be aggregated for a community's individual neighborhoods, schools, etc. When compared to county, state, and national data, local data can guide an understanding of the conditions that exist and help determine realistic targets for improvement. CHIP data should address the highest priority concerns of the populace and should be gathered by race, ethnicity, age, and gender to properly reflect the diverse character of each community. Individuals and and organizations armed with consistent, local data can work together building healthier and safer communities.

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Community Engagement Impact on Policy Making & Accountability

From its inception, CHIP has been committed to community participation. CHIP sought the input of hundreds of community members to develop core priority indicators of community health. From a list of over 200 health indicators, compiled from Oregon Benchmarks, the Healthy Communities Report and Benchmarks of the Portland/Multnomah Progress Board, Community Indicators/Greenville County/South Carolina United Way, the Health Assessment Project of Kansas, Today's Choices: Tomorrow's Community Vision & Values Research & Benchmarks; Oregon Health Division data collection lists and other health assessment and indicator models, 60 indicators in 9 categories were identified as possible priorities. 

A survey, sent to more than 500 organizations in the two county area, asked which indicators were most important in assessing community health. Nearly 20% responded ranging from a regional theater, architect and accounting firms, business leaders and owners and Hispanic and African American organizations. Their choices help the Leadership Team to focus on the 25 highest priority indicators.

The Leadership Team makes the policy decisions and provides direction for CHIP. It includes representatives from urban and rural communities -- elected officials, business, education, government, community groups, providers and non-profits. The Coordinating Team serves as the overall program support team and includes the original founders of CHIP.

The Technical Support Work Teams, including the Indicator and Definitions & Training subcommittees include skilled experts in data collection, evaluation and analysis, training, health care and human services, transportation, education, management information systems, geocoding and GIS (geographic information systems), corrections, cultural competency, migrant worker issues, drug and alcohol abuse, community development and collaboration, software development, children and family issues, physicians and hospitals and more.

We maintain a continuing dialogue with 13 Community Progress Teams and more than 187 Community Partners of Today's Choices: Tomorrow's Community. In fact, Today's Choices has agreed to be the "disseminator" of the Priority Indicator reports and data, and has dedicated a significant amount of staff time over the next year to support CHIP efforts.

As CHIP completes its first phase of data collection and comparison, a User Group is planned to seek responses and ideas for improving the data, increasing the ability of groups and communities to use the data and determining how it is best packaged. This group will help develop the formalized feedback and evaluation tools for all users of the data. Additionally, CHIP will collect experience and best practice information from all data users and share the information with all users. Ongoing reporting systems will be developed to measure data use and effectiveness of actions taken to impact priority indicators.

Examples of Working Together

One of the most important results of the development of sub-county data is the opportunity for partners to work together to respond to the data. For example, the Priority Indicator citing Teen Pregnancy may show a high rate of occurrence in one rural community.        

If all community partners -- the school district, health department, local hospital, community progress team, teen pregnancy prevention team, Adult & Family Services office, local Youth Services Team and others -- are armed with this information, they can more effectively determine strategies. In Mt. Angel, the Community Progress Team (CPT) was able to obtain two key pieces of local data regarding juvenile crime and high school age youth. The data indicated that nearly 30% of high school youth were involved or had been involved in some type of juvenile crime. The CPT joined with the Children & Families Commission, local school district and police department and Department of Human Resources Community Partnership Team, as well as local volunteers and business persons, to create a Youth Center and roster of after school and weekend activities for middle and high school youth. The activities range from tumbling and gymnastics classes to ski trips. In 18 months, juvenile crime as dropped nearly 30%. Without local data, the residents of Mt. Angel didn't even know they had such a significant problem.

CHIP also links with other Oregon counties that are trying to develop similar data collection and analysis tools, including Douglas and Clackamas Counties. CHIP works with the Oregon Health Division to support their efforts to develop a pilot project with the State of Washington's data collection effort, VISTA-PH.

Decision making is an inclusive and collaborative process using a consensus model which includes staff and team members. The Coordinating Team works with Technical Support Team/Subcommittee members to develop project action plans, raises issue and provides analysis for the Leadership Team to discuss and determine. We constantly seek outside input from government, business, non-profits and community groups to ensure that the data we collect will help their planning and decision making processes. By employing the "flexible team" approach, we are able to bring technical experts and community representatives together as issues and needs change to better respond to the needs of users of information and the community.       

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CHIP FUNDING

CHIP has no permanent source of funding. The project operates on grants from the Marion County Health Department, Marion County Children & Families Commission, Salem Hospital, and the Rural Investment Fund. Additionally, our partners provide ongiong technical, administrative, and staff support as well as materials and copying, meeting space, and more. Polk County, Oregon Health Division, and the State GIS office have donated technical staff, research, and computer time.

THE FUTURE OF CHIP

CHIP is currently gathering information on other community health indicators in addition to those already on this site.  Other indicators which CHIP plans to add at a later date are:

Economics

  • Percentage of people with incomes below 185% and 200% of federal poverty level

  • Percentage of people holding family wage jobs (85% of the averaged covered payroll in county)

Children and Families

  • Number/percentage of families without health insurance - public or private

Physical and Mental Health and Substance Abuse

  • Percentage of children to 2 years of age with up-to-date immunizations

Housing

  • Percentage of household below median income spending 30% or more of their income on housing (including utilities)

  • Percentage of available housing that is affordable

Transportation

  • Percentage of people who commute out of the area to work

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CHIP PARTNERS

Marion County Health Advisory Board
Salem Area Chamber of Commerce
Salem Hospital
Mid Valley IPA (Independent Physician Association)
Marion County Health Department
Polk County Department of Human Services
Salem-Keizer School District
United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley
Oregon Health Division
Silverton School District
Valley Community Hospital
Marion County Children & Families Commission
Marion County Sheriff's Department
Today's Choices: Tomorrow's Community*
13 Community Progress Teams**
Polk County Commission on Children & Families
DHR Community Partnership Team
Marion County Board of Commissioners
Oregon Option

*Over 187 Community Partners - Includes business, civic, and service organizations, government, providers, education, non-profits.

**Includes the communities of Silverton, Stayton/Sublimity/Lyons/Mehama, Mill City/Gates, Jefferson, Gervais/Hubbard, Aumsville/Turner, Woodburn, Mt. Angel, Salem (2), Keizer.

Roles & Responsibilities

At the outset of the project, each partner invited to participate on the CHIP Leadership and Technical Support Teams was asked that their commitment include providing resources -- in the form of technical, financial or in-kind support and to help positively influence the collection of sub-county level data. All CHIP partners have enthusiastically responded affirmatively. As we refine our specific needs, the Leadership Team members have committed to moving the project forward by providing support in the following areas:

  • Financial support & grant development.
  • In-kind donations -- staff, space, administrative, printing
  • Policy development & leadership
  • Compilation of research, experience and best practices
  • Technology - expertise, software development, hardware/software, staffing
  • Data collection, dissemination, and interpretation
  • Training and development for community organizations
  • Community capacity building
  • Liaison - to communities, state & federal government, professional organizations, community groups, business and others.

Partner Contributions

Since the beginning of the CHIP effort, our partners have made extraordinary contributions to keep this collaboration moving forward. Our thanks to Marion County Health Department who provided staff and technical support, funding and other administrative supplies; Salem Hospital for staff support, funding, supplies, meeting space and meals; Marion County Children & Families Commission for technical support and significant funding; and Valley Community Hospital for sponsoring a major grant. Thanks to the Oregon Health Division and State Center for GIS for donated staff and technical expertise.

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CHIP Leadership Team

Russ Beck
Executive Director
United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley

Steve Bowles
President/CEO
Valley Community Hospital

Lila Chambers, R.N.
Strategic Planning Director
Valley Community Hospital

Ruth Daniels
Salem-Keizer School District

Jeff Davis
Director
Marion County Health Department

Randy Franke
Commissioner
Marion County Board of Commissioners

Ruth Hewett
Marion County Children & Families Commission

Homer Kearns
Superintendent
Salem-Keizer School District

Donna Middelton
Director
Polk County Human Services

Michael McLaren
Executive Director
Salem Area Chamber of Commerce

Chris Neilsen
Executive Director
Today's Choices: Tomorrow's Community

Dennis Noonan
President
Salem Hospital

Raul Ramirez
Marion County Sheriff

Craig Roessler
Superintendent
Silver Falls School District

Debra Waln
Mid Valley IPA

Patrick Vance
Marion County Health Advisory Board
Silverton Hospital

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CHIP Coordinating Team

Roger Applegate
CHIP Project Manager
Marion County Mental Health

Lila Chambers, R.N.
Strategic Planning Director
Valley Community Hospital

Jeff Davis
Director
Marion County Health Department

Stacey Graham
CHIP Project Coordinator

Ruth Hewett
Community Volunteer

Donna Middleton
Director
Polk County Human Services
Polk County Health Advisory Board

Jim Randall
Community & Patient Relations
Salem Hospital

Vickie Simpson
Director, Health Services
Willamette University

Patrick Vance
Silverton Hospital

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CHIP Technical Support Work Team

Bob Anderson
Chemeketa Community College

Dean Anderson
Polk County Land Information Services

Diane Bassett
Marion/Polk Food Share
Migrant Outreach Project

Bob Brevoort
Salem Hospital

Janet Bubl
Marion County Health Department

Jan Fritz
Marion County Children & Families Commission

Rebecca Hernandez
Marion County Children & Families Commission - Marion County Health Department

Dean Hill
Mid Valley IPA

Charlene Hurst
Salem-Keizer School District

Sandy Maynard
DHR Community Partnership Team

Rob McDougald
Mid Willamette Valley Council of Governments

Larry Ogelsby
Marion County Corrections

Terri Rollman
Marion County Sheriff's Office

Marti Sohn
Polk County Public Health

Pamela Stefani
Catholic Community Services
Community Advocate

Patrick Vance
Silverton Hospital

Fred Weigman
State Service Center for GIS

Jennifer Woodward
Oregon Health Divison

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This page last updated 22 May 2002