Editorial Policy
Introduction
North Jersey Health Collaborative (NJHC) website is an online resource through which community members and policy makers can learn about community health and wellbeing. It provides balanced information on topics including local health, promising best practices, news, and community events.
The NJHC sets website policies and makes decisions about the content of the website.
Advertising Policy
No advertising is permitted on this website and none of its content represents a political endorsement by the NJHC or any of its sponsors.
The Healthy Communities Institute indicator system provides easy access to information on community health and wellbeing in eight topic areas. The primary aims of the indicator system are to inform and facilitate positive change in our community by supporting priority-setting, decision-making, and coordination. Each indicator page includes a definition of the indicator, a summary of the data value, and a link to the data source. The value for each indicator is shown along with comparisons that provide context for the information. The comparisons show how each value compares to those in other geographic areas (the distinct green-yellow-red gauge), how the value compares to a prior period (green or red up and down arrows), and how we compare to a national or state average (blue/white or green-red gradation gauge). In addition, the website provides comparisons to the national Healthy People 2020 objectives and Healthy New Jersey 2020 objectives, when available. It is 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, that does not mean that we should not be working to improve all indicators.
Some of these indicators are maintained by the Healthy Communities Institute (HCI) based on national and statewide data, while others are managed by NJHC. The Healthy Communities Institute, which provides the core site content, updates indicators soon after they are updated by their respective data sources. The frequency and timing of the updates varies with the source.
The core indicators meet the following criteria:
- Validated methodology for data collection and analysis
- Publicly available through known and respected sources
- Regular, scheduled publication of findings
- Focus on data values for small geographic areas, such as counties and zip codes that are available for all county-level locations in the state or in the U.S
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. For indicators where a high value is good, indicators are assigned green values if the value is better than or equal to the 50th percentile, yellow if the value is between the 50th percentile and the 25th percentile, and red if the value is less than the 25th percentile. In this ranking approach, the median is the value that provides the cut-off between the 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.
Time Period Comparison Indicators
These indicators show how an outcome varies over a significant amount of time, a commonly accepted period in the field, as indicated in the description. These indicators 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.
Community Indicator Data Standards:
- Data must be scientifically collected using quality research standards and/or be peer reviewed.
- Data from academic institutions or government entities is preferred
- 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
- 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:
- 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?)
- Dependable updates? (Is there the capacity for ongoing measurement?)
- Is it scientifically valid? (Has it undergone a peer review process?)
- Is the data available - both a value for our county and some comparison data?
Promising Practices
The purpose of the Promising Practices database is to inform professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life. The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. This database contains more than 2,000 promising practices, programs, and interventions and is a national resource created and maintained by the Healthy Communities Institute. The sources include health departments, federal agencies, universities, and community organizations (not individuals without an organizational affiliation). HCI ranks the practices as either “evidence-based,” “effective,” or “good ideas.”
Local communities have the opportunity to submit their own promising practices. The interventions suggested for inclusion must be community-focused and related to local community health and wellbeing and must meet the HCI standards noted above (evidence-based, effective, or a good idea).
Funding Opportunities
Healthy Communities Institute provides a list of national funding opportunities to help you identify funding sources to improve the health and wellbeing of your community. Funding opportunities are organized topically and include both government and foundation funding opportunities. Funding opportunities are added to the list on a regular basis and automatically removed when they expire.
Reports
The Report Center contains reports and studies by reliable sources on a variety of topic areas. Community members may submit reports to the North Jersey Health Collaborative for consideration and possible posting to the website. The reports should focus on community health and wellbeing in the community, and be clearly written and grounded in careful research and analysis.
News, Feature Articles and Other Homepage Content
Content on the homepage includes feature articles; important health news in our area, the state, and the nation; and featured content designed to deepen understanding of community health issues and activities. The stories posted on the homepage are maintained by the site administrator in consultation with the NJHC.
Community Calendar
The event calendar provides a comprehensive clearinghouse for information on local events designed to enhance wellbeing. It is maintained by the site administrator, in consultation with the NJHC.
The local resources section provides a comprehensive community services search tool that connects residents of northern New Jersey to important local health services.
Website Survey
Website survey questions are non-scientific polls intended to gather information for the NJHC.
Adding website survey: The site administrator will manage this tool.