Promoting and protecting America’s health is more than a job — it’s a passionate mission for a wide array of health professionals and community members across our country. Having worked for more than three decades in governmental public health, including as the former secretary of health in Washington, I witnessed every day the importance of community co-creating healthy people, places, and populations by combining solid data with evidence-based strategies and interventions and the lived experience of those we serve. I am excited to be leading the America’s Health Rankings Advisory Council to be part of the rigorous process of curating public health data and making it accessible so it can be turned into actions that make a difference.
Working in government instilled in me the idea that collaboration and co-creation is the cornerstone of success in public health. Navigating health challenges requires state health officers to connect with policymakers, community members, non-profits, faith leaders, health providers and leaders across disciplines to develop and implement focused solutions. America’s Health Rankings encourages partnership by equipping communities and public health leaders with comprehensive data, covering everything from socioeconomic and environmental factors spanning across categories, to meaningfully engage in these cross-sector conversations. This helps empower state and local health officers to more effectively advocate for the essential resources they need to improve the health and well-being of the communities in their jurisdictions by demonstrating both the impact and remaining opportunities.
Just as the platform has done over the past 35 years, it will continue to progress to meet the evolving needs of those who care about and work to improve the public’s health. In doing so, America’s Health Rankings continues to encourage crucial collaboration to advance evidence-driven and lived experience solutions for the complex health challenges facing the nation.