1. Using Child Health Data Effectively Child Health Policy Research Symposium

2. Child Health Data The link between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers is most frequently “data” and this creates major challenges: Who decides what data will be gathered? Are the data reliable and unbiased? From whom are the data valuable/meaningful? How are the data communicated and used? Who can make sense of the data?

3. Informing Reform Many of the questions that policy-makers will need have been answered (e.g., the benefits of health insurance), many haven’t (e.g., the best ways to control costs fairly).

4. Purpose of the Session Discuss health care data from the perspectives of a data producer and data user, and see how we can better merge link them.

5. Center for Community Health Studies Engaged in a 4-year evaluation of Children’s Health Initiatives co-funded by TCE and F5, designed to evaluate a entire initiative. How to collect data that answers scientific, practice, and policy questions (and notably meets the needs of our funders)?

6. New Data Sources Our study has worked to create several new data sources that will be helpful at local and state policy levels: Detailed county enrollment data for Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, and Healthy Kids programs. State and county-level data on potentially preventable hospitalizations for children (OSHPD). Detailed empirical, historical data on public insurance program outreach/enrollment strategies.

7. Statewide Survey of Healthy Kids Lastly, we are currently collecting survey data on children enrolled in Healthy Kids programs (established vs. newly enrolled): goal=4,000. Detailed data on child health, access to care, quality of care (particularly medical home) most topics are comparable to CHIS or NHIS. Results available in mid-July and should help to inform TCE’s place-based funding strategy.