Today the Public Health Foundation (PHF) announced that the deadline to enter the “I’m Your Community Guide” Contest has been extended to June 10, 2011. This contest provides an opportunity for organizations using evidence-based recommendations from the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) to share how they are doing so for a chance to win a $1,000 public health conference scholarship.
State, tribal, local, and territorial health departments; community health coalitions; and others who have used the Community Guide in their organization (and community) to improve health and prevent disease are encouraged to enter.
The top three entrants will be awarded scholarships in the amounts of $1,000, $500, and $250 respectively, to be used towards attendance at a national public health conference in 2011. The top 15 entrants will win an
“I’m Your Community Guide” prize pack, and all entrants will receive 15% off their next purchase of public health training materials from
PHF’s Online Store.
If your organization has used the
Community Guide, you still have time to enter. Submit your story for contest consideration via e-mail to
[email protected]; submissions can be made as a completed
contest entry form or as a text document of no more than two pages. For more information, see the
“I’m Your Community Guide” Contest Submission Guidelines.
Organizations have been telling PHF how they have improved the health of their communities using the Community Guide. Here are some examples:
“We selected a combination of client-oriented, provider-oriented, and community-wide interventions to implement a breast and cervical cancer screening promotion project. At the end of the two year project, Pap smear and mammogram rates increased by 10% and women continue to maintain screening behaviors. The interventions were so effective that we began utilizing the same strategies to address missed appointment rates at four locations of our health center. We demonstrated a 30% decrease in missed appointments in six months.”
--St. James-Santee Family Health Center, South Carolina
“We used evidence-based strategies to improve our community’s mental and behavioral health programs to reduce readmissions for inpatient hospital visits for the homeless and other at-risk populations. The program decreased arrest rates of the homeless population, and the associated costs of law enforcement, a savings of over $300,000. By reducing emergency room visits among these populations by 61.5%, we were also able to save $83,000 in healthcare costs that would have been picked up by the state.”
--Central Virginia Health Planning Agency