Background
Multisector collaboration between state health departments (SHDs) and diverse community partners is increasingly recognized as important for promoting positive public health outcomes, addressing social determinants of health, and reducing health inequalities. This study investigates collaborations between SHDs and different types of organizations addressing chronic disease in and outside of the health sector.
Methods
SHD employees were randomly selected from the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors membership list for participation in an online survey. Participants were asked about their primary chronic disease work unit (cancer, obesity, tobacco, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and others), as well as their work unit collaborations (exchange of information/cooperation in activities) with organizations in health and non-health sectors. As a measure of the different organizations SHDs collaborated with in health and non-health sectors, a collaboration heterogeneity score for each program area was calculated. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc tests were used to assess differences in collaborator heterogeneity between program areas.
Results
A total of 574 participants were surveyed. Results indicated the cancer program area, along with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, had significantly less collaboration heterogeneity with organizations outside of the health sector compared to the obesity and tobacco program areas.
Conclusions
Evidence suggests that to address social determinants of health and promote health equity, increased public health collaborations with diverse non-health sector community-based settings is critical.