How often do we update the SHA and the SHIP?
We update the plans every five years. In the meantime, the Health Department and partners continue to collect, analyze and report data.
In an update year like this one, what’s the timeline?
We approach the updating through the broad categories of plan, assess, synthesize, and publish. Some explanation about each of those phases:
Plan: the Steering Committee is formed, and this committee makes decisions about the update process itself.
Assess: this is the main phase in which the data for the SHA (State Health Assessment) is gathered, as well as information from the community about what health issues are important to Vermonters today. This year, we’ve intentionally taken a health equity approach. With guidance from the steering committee of state and non-state partners, the Health Department put together an Advisory Committee with a wide variety of community partners. The group met to discuss health equity and the challenges facing Vermonters, and will meet a second time to see the data and help narrow down priorities for the SHIP.
Synthesize: Synthesis is putting things together. The information from the data sources and the input of the community will be put together to form the State Health Assessment and the State Health Improvement Plan.
Publish: The SHA and SHIP will be published in 2018.
Who is on the Advisory Committee?
We invited over 140 organizations to participate, and the organizations listed in this document were able to send representatives to the Advisory Committee meetings.
How was the Advisory Committee chosen?
The initial invitee list was generated by talking to our programs within the Department of Health and listing our partners that we currently work with and that we need to work with in the future in pursuing our mission to protect and promote the best health for all Vermonters. Additionally, with guidance from our Health Equity Coordinator, we reviewed the list to ensure that we included voices from populations who experience or are at risk of experiencing health inequity. We are always looking for additional partners. If you did not participate in this process but would be interested in partnering to address health equity and our SHIP priorities please let us know.
Who else is engaged?
Some Advisory Committee members were not able to attend the committee meetings or preferred participating and communicating in a smaller group. The large Advisory Committee meetings are our “In” engagement. We also coordinated “Out” engagement where we went and met with people in the community, focusing again on populations who experience or may be at risk of experiencing health inequity. Because populations who experience or are at risk of experiencing health inequity have too often in the past not been fully included in engagement and analysis of our work, we will make every effort to ensure they are represented in this work in ways that feel comfortable to them.
What did the Advisory Committee talk about in the meetings?
Notes and minutes are available from the Advisory Committee meetings; see that section at the bottom of this page. Specifically of note, the vision for the future and summary of forces of change documents are good summaries of what we talked about and what the participants had to say.