Real-Time Learning at the Intersection of Climate, Health, and Equity

Climate change is the greatest public health threat of our time, and it disproportionately affects frontline communities, which are often low-income communities of color. The Kresge Foundation's Climate Change, Health and Equity (CCHE) Initiative aims to build climate resilience and advance policies and practices to tackle climate change in ways that reflect the needs and priorities of low-income communities and communities of color.

Ross Strategic conducted a developmental evaluation for Phase 1 of the initiative. We worked closely with the Kresge Foundation and initiative partners to develop a Learning Framework, collect and analyze data, and facilitate real-time learning to inform the design, development, and implementation of CCHE and future intersectional initiatives of similar scope.

Injury Surveillance Special Emphasis Report Tools for Epidemiologists

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Injury Surveillance Workgroup aims to improve injury surveillance methods and better enable epidemiologists to use data to inform decision making. Injury Special Emphasis Reports are one tool used by state health department injury and violence prevention programs to understand prevention needs related to specific causes or populations by focusing on subsets of a state’s injury and death data. Ross Strategic developed and piloted a set of Injury Special Emphasis Report tools, including a series of databases, instructions, fillable-PDF templates, and a training video for reporting incidence/prevalence of traumatic brain injury, suicide, and motor vehicle traffic crash data. These customizable templates allow state, tribal, local, and territorial epidemiologists to summarize and visually present their inpatient hospitalization emergency department, and death record data by age group, sex, race/ethnicity, and geographic region. These resources are available on CSTE’s Injury Surveillance Toolkit site.

Making Water a Career of Choice

Each day, communities and businesses depend on clean and safe water for daily activities. Hundreds of thousands of skilled workers make up America’s water sector, and one-third are approaching retirement. Many utilities are critically thinking about their workforce and brainstorming strategies to engage with their communities and potential employees. EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management – Sustainable Water Utilities Program worked with Ross Strategic to interview nine water utilities across the country to learn more about their workforce programs. The utilities described how they recruit new employees, retain their current employees, increase workforce skills/competencies for internal advancement, and build community partnerships. Their efforts were compiled into a compendium “Making Water a Career of Choice: A Compendium of Water Workforce Case Studies from Across the Country” to share the nine utilities’ stories and spark conversations and connections within the water sector.

Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Drinking Water

The Association of State Drinking Water Administrators’ State CEC Rule Development and Management Strategies Toolkit helps drinking water agencies move from a strong signal of potential risk from a contaminant of emerging concern (CEC) in drinking water to managing risk to an acceptable level, potentially including creating a state-specific CEC rule establishing a Maximum Contaminant Level or treatment technique.

To produce this toolkit, Ross Strategic conducted desk research as well as gathered individual and collective input from drinking water professionals in ten states. Representatives from these states reflected on and shared their experience and expertise managing CECs through one-on-one interviews, an in-person workshop, and module-specific webinars over the course of six months to share their insights, lessons learned, and resources. Ross Strategic synthesized information and insights into a nationally applicable toolkit.