Building Public Health Competencies for Cross-Sector Leadership: Results From the National Leadership Academy for the Public's Health.

Context. The public health workforce is increasingly being asked to provide leadership in addressing complex community health needs. Effective leadership requires adaptiveness and cross-sector collaboration in developing solutions to address community needs. Program. An annual yearlong public health leadership development program, which engages cross-sector teams and uses an iterative design to build competencies for adaptive and collaborative leadership across sectors (e.g., public health, business, education, nonprofits). Implementation. The program engages cross-sector teams through a national retreat, coaching, site visits, interactive webinars, readings, and a community-based action learning project. As of 2020, the program was offered to nine cohorts, serving more than 100 communities across the United States. Results. Results from a mixed-methods evaluation found that high proportions of participants reported increased leadership skills, cross-sector collaboration, continued use of tools and concepts, and positive impact on their communities after participating in the program. Across all cohorts, participants rated themselves on five leadership domains and 17 leadership competencies focused on by the program. All domains and all competencies had statistically significant improvements from the beginning to the end of their program year. Discussion. The improvements in leadership skills were seen across all cohorts, geographies, roles, and sectors. The success of the program suggests the need for leadership programs that emphasize adaptive and collaborative leadership to advance community health and equity.

Fostering Partnerships with the Safety Net: An Evaluation of Kaiser Permanente's Community Ambassador Program in the Mid-Atlantic States.

INTRODUCTION: Kaiser Permanente (KP) Mid-Atlantic States has partnered with communities in its service area since 2011 to provide health services to underserved individuals. As part of KP's Community Benefit investment, the Community Ambassador Program places KP advanced-practice clinicians in safety-net clinics to share best practices and to improve access and quality of care. OBJECTIVE: To report program outcomes and disseminate lessons learned. METHODS: Using data from participating clinics, we retrospectively evaluated the program and estimated Community Ambassadors' contributions to clinic capacity, patient access, evidence-based care, and clinical quality measures. Furthermore, we conducted 29 semistructured phone interviews with stakeholders. Questions focused on program benefits, challenges, learning, and sustainability. RESULTS: From 2013 to 2017, Community Ambassadors filled up to 32.8 full-time equivalent positions and conducted 294,436 patient encounters in 19 clinics. In certain years and for subsets of clinics, Community Ambassadors performed above average on 2 high-priority quality measures: Cervical cancer screening for women aged 21 to 64 years and diabetes (blood glucose) control. Interviews with 15 Community Ambassadors, 15 health centers leaders, and 7 KP Mid-Atlantic States staff members revealed that Community Ambassadors improved patient access, clinic capacity, and care quality. Ambassadors also exported KP best practices and supported KP's community relations. Challenges included patient acuity, clinic resources, staff turnover, and long-term sustainability. CONCLUSION: The Community Ambassador Program achieved its goals and had clear benefits, offering a model for large health care systems wanting to collaborate with community-based clinics. Careful planning is needed to ensure that positive results are sustained.

Boulder Food Rescue: An Innovative Approach to Reducing Food Waste and Increasing Food Security.

Food waste and food insecurity are both significant issues in communities throughout the U.S., including Boulder, Colorado. As much as 40% of the food produced in the U.S. goes uneaten and ends up in landfills. Nearly 13% of people in the Boulder region experience some level of food insecurity. Founded in 2011, Boulder Food Rescue supports community members to create their own food security through a participatory approach to an emergency food system. The organization uses a web-application "robot" to manage a schedule of volunteers. They coordinate with individuals at low-income senior housing sites, individual housing sites, family housing sites, after-school programs, and pre-schools to set up no-cost grocery programs stocked with food from local markets and grocers that would otherwise go to waste. Each site coordinator makes decisions about how, when, and where food delivery and distribution will occur. The program also conducts robust, real-time data collection and analysis. Boulder Food Rescue is a member and manager of the Food Rescue Alliance, and its model has been replicated and adapted by other cities, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Seattle, Jackson Hole, Minneapolis, Binghamton, and in the Philippines. Information for this special article was collected through key informant interviews with current and former Boulder Food Rescue staff and document review of Boulder Food Rescue materials. Boulder Food Rescue's open source software is available to other communities; to date, 40 cities have used the tool to start their own food rescue organizations. Boulder Food Rescue hopes to continue spreading this model to other cities that are considering ways to reduce food waste and increase food security. SUPPLEMENT INFORMATION: This article is part of a supplement entitled Building Thriving Communities Through Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives, which is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Community Health.