Center for Rural Health Practice
The University of Pittsburgh Center for Rural Health Practice (CRHP) is the rural coordinating unit of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Public Health Preparedness (UPCPHP), ensuring that new training initiatives reflect issues specifically relevant to rural health preparedness. The center identifies priority rural health projects; develops collaborations to address identified issues; secures the needed funding; and engages University and external experts to conduct research and programs.
Because it is located on the Pitt-Bradford campus, CRHP has access to rural communities, providers, and citizens, enabling the center to identify and articulate health issues that are particularly relevant to rural America. Local communities serve as the testing grounds for national program models and for the development of rural health policy.
UPCPHP and the CRHP also provide in-person, county-level training targeting Pennsylvania’s 48 rural counties. County emergency management agency directors are recruited to host trainings and bring together all of their rural responders. Regional occupational safety and health administrative officers, EMA directors, and local Pennsylvania Department of Health staff are invited to present components of the training to ensure connectedness to local issues and concerns.
Center for Healthy Aging
The Center for Healthy Aging was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October 2001. The core theme for the center is health promotion and disease prevention in the older adult population. The center chose an innovative research theme for the project that targets the region’s ever-growing healthy, but at-risk population of older citizens. The project is highly collaborative within both the public health community and the community at large, complimenting and not subverting the already established flow of patient care.
Promoting the concept of healthy aging as a public health goal for the community, the center focuses on the 10 Keys to Healthy Aging that research has shown to be highly effective in enhancing to the health of older adults
- get regular immunizations
- participate in cancer screening
- maintain social contact
- stop smoking
- regulate diabetes (blood glucose under 100)
- be active
- control systolic blood pressure (under 140)
- prevent bone loss and muscle weakness
- combat depression, and
- lower LDL cholesterol to less than 100
Health Policy Institute
Founded in 1980 through a collaboration of the University of Pittsburgh, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, and six Pittsburgh-based foundations, the Health Policy Institute (HPI) is dedicated to improving the healthcare decision-making that is vital to the region’s health status and continued economic development. Located in the Department of Health Policy and Management, HPI is guided by an advisory group comprised of foundation, business, healthcare, community, and university leaders. HPI’s governance briefings, analytical and educational activities, and publications and presentations help improve management and governance decisions.
HPI’s Governance Initiative was developed in response to the increasingly difficult challenges facing those who govern the region’s healthcare organizations. The initiative features briefings on topics of interest to governing board members and executives and provides opportunities for leaders of local healthcare organizations to share their experiences in governance improvement. HPI also supports healthcare decision-makers through analyses and conceptualizations of the issues and options they face and by communication of this information through related publications and presentations. HPI continues to track structural changes in the region’s healthcare system, regularly updating and distributing its descriptive Simplified Guide to the Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Health Care Market.
HPI extends its impact by undertaking a variety of collaborative and participatory activities. Among the most important of these is a long-running collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute of Politics to co-sponsor an annual seminar for elected officials on health topics. In addition, important collaborations occur with the Center for Bioethics and Health Law and the Center for Minority Health, among others.