Susan G. Zepeda
What do Kentuckians’ really think about the Affordable Care Act? Medicaid expansion? A statewide smoke-free law? Are there more cost-effective ways to deliver health care services to a growing insured population? Are there more effective ways to keep Kentucky healthy?
The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky is a nonprofit, non-partisan philanthropic organization committed to improving the health of Kentuckians throughout the commonwealth — and to finding answers to questions like these. We do this through targeted research, polling and investment in demonstration projects aimed at testing ways to do health care differently or improve community health. We seek to improve access to care, reduce health risks and disparities, and promote health equity through lasting policy and systems change, and offer those most impacted by these policies and systems a chance to have their voices heard.
Foundation work focuses on two primary areas: promoting responsive health policy and improving the health of children in the state. The promotion of responsive health policy aims to make public policy in Kentucky more responsive to the health and health-care needs of Kentuckians. Investing in Kentucky’s Future is an initiative aimed to improve the health of Kentucky's children by engaging in communities and testing innovative strategies.
In addition, the foundation is committed to attract and sustain investment in innova-tions in health care and health promotion through supporting communities. Strategies in this area include continued support for the federal Social Innovation Fund multiyear effort, Kentucky Healthy Futures Initiative; matching grants; conference support investments; and communications partnerships designed to increase awareness of health issues.
Investments in and near Lexington reinforce the foundation’s desire to work with local communities on specific health challenges. As former Foundation Community Advisory Committee member Dr. Gil Friedell was fond of reminding us, if the problem is in the community, chances are the solution is in the community. Since the foundation was launched in 2001, more than 100 central Kentucky projects have moved forward with the help of grants from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
A recent grant from the foundation to the city of Lexington helped make it possible for a local food coordinator to be hired. Ashton Potter Wright was hired to fill a new position created to improve connections between central Kentucky farmers and consumers. The goal is to increase the fresh, locally grown, healthy food choices for residents and new sales markets for farmers.
Another current example of foundation-funded projects in the region is telehealth clinics in Bath, Wolfe and Powell counties. These clinics, an innovation of St. Joseph Healthcare, part of the KentuckyOne Health system, allow patients in those counties to meet virtually with a physician specialist in Lexington. These video encounters can be more convenient and cost effective than having each patient drive to Lexington for a traditional follow-up office visit or check-up.
The foundation is a credible resource for data and objective analysis regarding the changing health-care system in Kentucky and our nation. We work with epidemiologists at University of Kentucky and use data from the statewide behavioral risk factor survey to provide best estimates of county-level health data, on the www.kentuckyhealthfacts.org website we manage. The foundation-funded Endowed Chair in Rural Health Policy at UK, a position currently held jointly by Dr. Brady Reynolds and Dr. Ty Borders, has established the Institute for Rural Health Policy at UK and recently announced a new partnership to create the Appalachian Health and Research Center in Morehead, Ky.
The Kentucky Health Issues Poll (KHIP) is another way the foundation informs health policy. Each year, in partnership with the Cincinnati-based foundation Interact for Health, KHIP provides health status and brief socioeconomic profiles of the commonwealth along with Kentuckian's views on health-related topics. Issues polled in the current 2014 reports include:
• Health insurance coverage
• Medicaid expansion
• Kynect
• Affordable Care Act
• Smoke-free law
• Eating fruits and vegetables
• Physical activity
• Oral health
• Drinking water
• Children’s health policy