Communities Count: Engaging Local Communities to Develop and Document Social and Health Indicators

Ann Glusker, Public Health - Seattle & King County
Kathryn Horsley, Public Health- Seattle & King County
Alison Eisinger, Public Health- Seattle & King County

This session presents results of a collaborative project, Communities Count: Social and Health Indicators Across King County; sharing the mission, values and methods of this county-level endeavor that offers a common set of social and health indicators for use by local governments, public agencies, funders, non-profit and community-based organizations, and residents. We will discuss key roles of citizen participation in developing indicators, and efforts made to include perspectives of low income people, immigrants and refugees, and people of color through data collection partnerships with community-based agencies; with particular attention given to being inclusive of county-level ethnic and geographic diversity in developing indicators, and in reporting on disparities based on age, race, income and gender. We will discuss methods used for gathering indicator information from groups that are difficult to reach through surveys, including developing local agency partnerships to collect information from non-English speakers, low income people, and people of color.