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| Editorial Policy | ||
Introduction
The Whatcom Counts web tool is intended to be a place where citizens, community leaders and policy makers can learn about the overall health of our communities and our local community assets as well as connect with articles, news and promising best practices from around the country. This site is a program of the Whatcom Coalition for Healthy Communities . In keeping with the Coalition's mission and values, it is important that the site provide balanced information on a broad range of topics affecting the health of our community and highlighting the assets in our community.
The Coalition strives to ensure that as many voices as possible are heard from a wide range of perspectives and remain open to various ways to improve community health. Our aim is for people to use the information on the site to improve our community health. We invite everyone to think about what kind of community health indicators and other information are important and to participate in a community conversation about what this information means to us and our quality of life. We also want to promote community leadership by encouraging people to take action on emerging issues. We want our readers to participate in community conversations in collaborative and constructive ways and to be responsible about disagreements and different points of view. It is our belief that part of creating a more healthy community includes engaging and understanding a wide variety of perspectives.
We hope that if you have ideas of indicators you would like to see, have data you would like to share, or ideas for articles or conversations to launch, you will consider contributing to the site. These editorial guidelines are written to give you background on different features of the site and policies about how to make contributions to the site.
WHATCOMCOUNTS.ORG DATA
Overall, there are four questions that we consider to be important in considering information to add to the site:
1. Does it add value or fill a gap?
2. Is the content current and can we keep it current (if applicable)?
3. Is the indicator or article valid and credible?
4. Does the information exist in a usable form?
Review by Subject Matter Experts
We are working with 2 to 3 subject matter experts in each topic area to advise us regarding community indicators, promising practices and related featured content. WCHC has worked with experts in each topic area over many years who have reviewed indicators and given us advice in their area of expertise. We will continue to consult with these subject matter experts as we develop this site to ensure that information is as relevant and accurate as possible and that a balanced perspective is given.
Posting Comments by Readers
Posting comments to the site is a feature that is available in different sections of the site to allow for community feedback and dialogue. We have outlined guidelines for comments so that people posting know the rules for giving feedback. The Coalition makes the determination as to whether or not to post comments based on both space availability and whether the comment follows the guidelines.
1. We require a name and phone number to be given. Posting cannot be anonymous.
2. Postings must be relevant to the topic area in which you are posting.
3. Please use a civil tone and common courtesy in your posting.
4. Consider what value your comment is adding to the discussion and what you are contributing to the improvement of our community's overall health
5. Be as accurate as you can be and attempt to check your facts and sources before posting.
6. While disagreement is an anticipated part of community conversations, no personal attacks or slander will be tolerated.
COMMUNITY INDICATOR DATA
What is it: Community indicators are researched in the nine topic areas to provide a measure of how our community is doing. For each indicator, the actual value is shown as well as information about how we are doing compared to other geographic areas (the red-yellow-green gauge) or how we are doing measured over time (green or red up and down arrows) or how we compare to a national or state average (blue/white gauge) to give some context to the information. It's important to remember that while we may be doing better on some indicators than other parts of the country or compared to a state or national average value, that does not mean that we should not be working on improving all indicators. Indicators are described and links given to the source of the data and what the values mean. Some of these indicators are maintained by the Healthy Communities Institute based on national and statewide data, while others are managed by the Whatcom Coalition for Healthy Communities . The primary aims of the indicator system are to inform and facilitate positive change. To inform, we must provide accurate, reliable, and timely data at a geographically-meaningful level. We accomplish this by selecting sources that meet the following criteria:
Methods
Through the Healthy Communities indicator system, community members have easy access to critical information about their community.The status of the community can be displayed in several ways that are easy to understand.
Regional Comparison Indicators
For indicators that are meaningfully displayed as an objective value that can be compared to other communities, the local value is assigned a status (green=excellent, yellow=fair, or red=poor) based on how the local value ranks in comparison to other communities. These indicators compare a community's measure to a distribution of other relevant geographies.Indicators are assigned green values if the value is better than or equal to the 50
th
percentile, yellow between the 50
th
percentile and the 25
th
percentile, and red less than the 25
th
percentile. In this ranking approach, the median is the value that provides the cut-off between green and yellow ranking.
Average Comparison Indicators
For indicators that are not meaningfully displayed as an objective value (i.e. median home value) or where we do not have values for other communities, but do have a national or state mean value, the blue/white indicator dial (if direction does not matter) or tri-color dial (if direction matters) simply shows how our community compares nationally or statewide. This indicator is a useful way to present community data compared to the state or national median or mean value and allow the user to interpret the local indicator value.
Average Comparison Indicator Example: In a community the median home price is above the median home value compared to 39 other counties in the state.The fact that the median home value is above the median can be interpreted in two ways, depending on the end-users perspective: if you are selling your home, high median values may be a beneficial, but if you are trying to purchase a home, high median values may be a negative.
Time Period Comparison Indicators
These indicators show how an outcome varies from year to year.These indicators really have three states: getting better, getting worse, or stayed the same.These indicators are typically used when distribution data is not available to calculate a comparison distribution or when trend data seems more relevant and important on an issue than comparison to other locales. They are also useful to highlight when a measure compares favorably to other communities, but the measure is actually moving in the wrong direction.
Time Period Comparison Indicator Example: In community A, the % of the population that is overweight or obese is 50.5% and this percentage has been growing over the last three years.The yearly percentages exceed the CDC 2010 Healthy People goal for healthy weight (<40% of adult population overweight or obese), though the local value (50.5%) is still better than the median value where 61.3% of adult population is overweight or obese in the state.In this case, a time period comparison indicator can be used to show that the community trend is increasing and there is a growing percentage of the adult population that is either overweight or obese.
Community Indicator Data origin/standards:
1. Data must be scientifically collected using quality research standards and/or be peer reviewed.
2. Data from academic institutions or government entities is preferred.
3. Service statistics from local agencies are not typically scientifically collected data. This information can be incorporated into the site in other areas, but not usually as community indicators.
4. The source of the data is identified and if a conflict of interest could exist on the part of the data collector, that will be clearly noted, e.g. a data collector with a commercial interest in the data.
Criteria for consideration of proposed new indicators:
1. Does it add value? (Does it fill a gap? Is it a good enough proxy measure for an area for which we want an indicator? Is it better than a current indicator?)
2. Dependable updates? (Is there the capacity for ongoing measurement?)
3. Is it scientifically valid? (We ask that data proposers be able to identify their peer review process, which can be confirmed by the 2 - 3 experts in each area.)
4. Is the data available - both a value for our county and some comparison data?
PROMISING PRACTICES/ARTICLES AND LITERATURE
What is it: Databases of promising practices and articles and literature are both initially populated by a database of national resources created by the Healthy Communities Institute. In our local communities, we have the opportunity to add local content to these sections.
WCHC staff will consult with two to three community experts/leaders in the topic area to determine the appropriateness of adding local promising practices and/or local articles and literature. Again, we will use the four central questions as part of determining appropriateness of content: Does it add value or fill a gap? Are there dependable mechanisms to keep the content current? Is it valid and credible? Is it available?
FEATURE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
What is it: on the home page, we post local feature articles and stories on topics that enhance, analyze and provide deeper understanding of the community health indicator data, potentially promising practices, and community assets. Feature articles may be as simple as linking to existing web articles about a particular issue along with a brief article that relates to local assets or indicators or they may be completely written and created locally. We invite community members to suggest articles that relate to local community health issues, indicators, and promising best practices. Feature articles are generally
rotated on a weekly basis with an eye to providing a diverse array of stories with a local emphasis. We may also post a monthly topic that is designed to engage the community in a conversation about particular issues facing our community. These monthly features will incorporate articles from multiple perspectives and we will post comments/letters from readers responding to the issues raised in these articles. We hope to engage the public in discussions about topics important to the health of our community so that we can find new and creative ways to improve our community's health. In keeping with the overall goals of the Coalition to promote civil dialogue and present a balanced perspective, we hope that thoughtful framing of questions and issues for the community to consider will promote and nurture a healthy community.
COMMUNITY SURVEY QUESTIONS
What is it: Community survey questions are non-scientific polls to gather responses on various topics among those individuals using the site. The question is shown on the home page and allows people to choose an answer from a multiple choice list. These questions and poll results are archived and can be accessed after they have been removed as the question of the moment so that readers may review previous questions and poll results. The questions change on approximately a weekly basis and typically relate to the feature article or to key community indicators on the site. Community members and groups may suggest ideas for questions to ask.