I'm Jennifer Peterson, joined by Liz Morris, the project coordinator for "Health Happens in Libraries," and Liz I'm going to pass it on over to you to get us started. 
>> Liz: Excellent.
Thank you so much, Jennifer, and thank you for all of you for joining us for today's conversation focused on launching community conversations with local health data.
We are excited to bring this topic to you as part of our broader program effort to magnify the role of public libraries as key contributors to community health.
We know using data to understand community needs and connect with partners is a productive way to engage in this topic.
We're excited to hear your questions and your ideas in chat as we go.
Before we dive in, I want to share with you some information on some resources that we have made available at our program site to support your work in this area.
We have a number of library guides focused on actions and reflection questions that you can use independently or use with colleagues in your library to support health-related services.
We also have posted a media kit that has a communications guide, with some key messages and strategies for bringing those messages to target audiences in your community regarding the role of the library and community health, and we also have made available some "Health Happens in Libraries" images that you can download and include in your communications resources.
We have been producing profiles of state and public libraries who are taking action on community health.
And if any of you have stories that you would like to share or would like to be profiled at our program site, please feel free to reach me directly and we can have a conversation about that because we're really excited about opportunities to share ideas with the fields at large.
And, finally, we are very excited to be conducting a "Health Happens in Libraries" poster session at the ALA conference in San Francisco, and the date for that is Sunday, June 28th, 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. in the convention center.
We would invite any and all of you who may be at ALA to feel free to swing by and say hi and join us there.
Moving on to today's conversation, I am excited to introduce our presenters.
We will first hear from Kate Konkle, who is a community coach with the county health rankings and roadmaps project.
Kate will share information about this project and the tools that are available to community partners to take action on health using local data.
And then Renee Masters, information services and outreach librarian with the Buffalo and Erie County public library.
One of five public libraries that we have been working with to plan and implement community health engagements with local partners and we appreciate her sharing her story with us and all of you and we will highlight all of our five partnering libraries during the ALA poster session and -- hope you can take inspiration from those stories and your work.
With that, I'm happy to introduce Kate and welcome her to get us started. 
>> Kate: Thanks so much, Liz.
And thank you for inviting me to present today on County Health Rankings & Road Maps.
This is going to be a high-level brief overview, but lots of resources to learn more if you're interested.
So, just to start with, we are a -- the County Health Rankings & Road Maps is a partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
We have many great partners that help us produce and get out to communities the resources that are available so just like you're building community partnerships, we also really work in partnership with many others and some of those folks are listed here.
A quick outline.
We start with an overview of the County Health Rankings & Road Maps, AB -- and show you how you can explore your rankings data.
And we will also look at tools for taking action and where you can find those, and those tools can help you move forward with action and also how you can learn from others. 
So, as we move through our -- 
the presentation today, I want you to think about who else might you need to share this information with?
What's one idea for action that you are taking from the webinar, and what else do you still need to know to be able to take action or to use the information that we are sharing today?
I'd also encourage you to share through the chat feature if you have tools or examples of work that you're doing, tools that you've used to share those with others as we go through the webinar. 
So, we'll get started with the real content here.
So, in 2014, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation laid out a very powerful vision for building the culture of health.
Some of you may have heard this if you listen to MPR at all, they sponsor, MPR, you will hear working to build a culture of health.
And it's really, what does that mean?
And it really is the belief that all individuals and families should have the means and the opportunity to make choices that lead healthy life-styles regardless of where they live.
So, we like to start webinars with a guiding question.
Today's question is how can rankings and roadmaps help build the culture of health in every community?
The picture is a tapestry from Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the prize winners from the first cohort in 2013.
They weaved together this tapestry.
Each of the community partners put their name on a strip of fabric and wove the pieces of fabric into this tapestry and it visually represents the power of collaboration to bring diverse partners together, to create something new and meaningful.
A partnership.
And working with diverse partners from all walks of life was really one of the ways that Cambridge was building a culture of health.
So, I challenge you and encourage you to think about what your community tapestry looks like, what your strip of fabric looks like in that tapestry.
Where it might be right now, if it is fully integrated, if it's partially integrated.
If you have a strip of fabric but not sure where to put it yet.
And think about what you want it to look like.
So, with that, we will move into some of the tools and resources and the overview of the rankings and roadmaps.
So, this is really the picture that shows the thinking behind the rankings.
Theory of change about how the rankings can be a catalyst for action that improve the health of everyone in a community. 
So, starting on the left, we take population-based data collected by others.
We gather it all in one spot, and that's your county snapshot.
And we use that to calculate the county health rankings.
And that's often about as far as people get into the rankings, the data.
Which is a great resource, but we want to remind people that there is more than the data.
And we produce the rankings for a reason.
Because they get attention and can be used to start and broaden conversations about health and communities.
And those conversations can then lead to broad community engagement, and multi-sector partnerships that can, in turn, help people to select and implement evidence-informed strategies to address the community priority areas and improve health outcomes.
So, while we know that it looks simple in theory, putting the model into practice is challenging.
We provide tools to assist in those areas.
The reminder is that the rankings themselves, the data, the ranks, that side of the information is really a call to action.
It's really intended to get people talking about health and seeing their role in health in a different way than maybe they had before.
So, this is one of the most important images that we will share with you today.
It shows the -- what we use to determine the county health rankings and what influences health in a community.
And also shows the relationship between policy health factors and health outcomes.
And it illustrates how there are many factors that impact how well and how long we live.
Things like how we commute to work.
Housing conditions, access to parks, quality of our schools, availability of jobs, access to healthy foods, clean air and water, and our social connectedness all impact our health outcomes.
So, starting from the bottom, we know that effective local state and federal policies and programs can improve a variety of factors that, in turn, shape the health of communities.
That many health factors, those are the blue boxes in this picture, shape our communities' health outcomes.
We specifically look at health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors and the physical environment.
You can see the relative weight they are given in the rankings. 
And then we measure two types of health outcomes.
Those are the green boxes.
We look at length of life and quality of life.
So, we often point to this image as one of our most important, because it outlines what we use to determine the rankings and what influences the health of a community.
And because much of what influences our health happens beyond medical care, this really can underscore how important it is to bring together partners so that it is not just public health and health departments, but it is community, it's libraries, it's education.
It's businesses.
And we'll get into that a little bit in a few minutes. 
To find out more about the rankings and your own counties rank and data, you can go to our home page.
This is a screen shot of the home page.
And there are a couple of ways to get into the rankings.
You can either click on the map -- I'm going to go to the next slide here.
You can either click on the map, or you can do a search in the search bar across the top and put in your county name or your state name.
So, we're going to go to Dane County, Wisconsin, but go in as if we clicked on the map.
That will take you to your state landing page.
This is Wisconsin's state landing page.
And I'm bringing you here because, one, you can see the two different maps, the green again is health outcomes, blue is health factors.
Scroll down to the bottom, there is additional resources below the maps on the state landing page.
So, you can see that the counties are shaded in different colors.
You can see some are lightly colored and some are darker.
The lighter shaded counties are healthier.
This gives you an overall picture.
And then you can find your county or at the top you will see a drop-down menu to select a county.
If you are not great with geography and can't quite find the county or if you live in Texas where there are lots and lots of counties, you can use the drop-down menu.
That will take you to your county snapshot.
This is what the Dane county snapshot, which is where I'm based, looks like for 2015.
It ranks 15th out of 72 counties for health outcomes, and second for health factors.
Not the best but in the top core tile.
 There is lots of interesting data information.
You can compare that to data for your state and you can look at also the U.S. top performers.
How are the best counties doing?
And that just gives you a sense of how you are doing compared to others.
You can explore this information and see what looks like you're doing well.
What things look like maybe a little cause for concern.
And I would recommend looking at the data more than the ranks themselves, although that can give you a good sort of quick picture.
And if you're curious about what any of the measures are looking at, measures there along the -- I'm going to scroll through again.
Measures there along the left.
You can hover over them and it will give you more information.
Or you can click on them, and that will give you even more information.
Another great feature -- 
oops -- the trend graph, there we go.
For 12 of our measures, we have trend graphs available.
And what I really like about these is it gives you a cool picture.
It lets you see over time, not just at a point in time, how your county is performing.
This is the trend graph for adult obesity and Dane county.
Dane county is the blue line.
Wisconsin average is the green.
The U.S. average is the orange line.
You can see how you're comparing to your state and to the U.S.
And you can see if your trend looks like it is going in the same direction or in a different direction.
So, I -- this is an interesting one to look at.
You can see that Dane county, for many years, sort of following along the trend line and then in 2010, something happened and while everyone else continued to level off or go up a little bit, Dane county started to come down.
So, this is an opportunity to see if something different is happening or something the same is happening or things are getting better or worse over time which can give you a better sense of what's happening than just a single point in time piece of data information. 
So, another interesting feature is at the top of your county snapshot, you will see a little button that says areas to explore.
If you turn that on, it will highlight measures that you might want to explore a little bit more.
You might not be performing as well as compared to either your state or others in the U.S.
And it depends on the measure how we determine that.
But these are areas where, you know, it's important to maybe take a look and say what's happening here because our community, in particular, isn't doing well in this area, at least according to this specific measure.
That will give you a quick sense of maybe a starting point for where to start the discussions.
We know there is a lot of community information and context that communities need to add to really figure out where the best places to spend time and energy and trying to improve community health. 
So, I want to pause here before we jump in to the roadmap side of things to see if there is any questions about the data.
I know that was a quick overview, but, again, the web site is really rich and I think if you have some time to go and explore, you will find lots of good information there.
>> Thank you, Kate.
That was a great overview of the data.
We haven't had any questions come through in chat but I would encourage folks to continue to consider what else they want to know and I want to acknowledge and appreciate the previous slide about the areas to explore.
I think that is a really great feature to help hone in potentially, if folks need ideas for where they might get started.
Thanks for sharing that.
>> Great.
I would encourage people as they look at the model or the measures, if there is anything that stands out in terms of things that we consider to be part of health that maybe you haven't thought of before or interesting notes that you made about the model, if you have any comments about that, that would be great to share as well. 
All right.
We're going to jump in to my favorite part of the web site where I spend a lot of my time.
And that is the roadmaps.
The roadmaps to health, how do communities take that data and put it into action and do something about the -- moving the needle, changing those numbers for their community.
So, this is take action cycle.
And it is the how with Dane county health rankings and roadmaps.
We know solving issues like low high school graduation rates, excessive drinking, requires the wisdom and resources of all people in the community.
You will see several potential community partners in the blue center at the -- at the core of this model, people working together to improve health.
Health is really everyone's business.
And we believe that people from a wide variety of sectors have a role to play in improving a community's health.
So, throughout this work, it's important to continually communicate with partners, policy makers, your community, to know how to use the media effectively to tell your story.
So we have a guide -- you'll see outside we have worked together, that's all of those people coming together and working together and communicate.
These are actions that happen throughout the cycle.
Whether you are assessing needs and resources, starting at the top right corner, or working your way around to implementing and evaluating your actions, we want to make sure that we're working together and communicating.
We will talk about where you can find resources for each of the different steps in the action cycle and for each of the partners that you will see at the middle. 
The foundation of county health rankings, the roadmap side of it, is that, one, it takes everyone.
As I have said.
All of those sectors in the middle of the circle.
You will see community members are at the center driving this work.
We want to move from data to evidence-informed action.
We can sometimes get stuck wanting more information.
At some point we need to say that the information we have gives us enough to go on to know that it is time to move into action and do something about that information.
That we want to focus across the health factors, including the social and economic factors, that all of those things are important.
Some of them may seem harder or more daunting to take on as a community, but working together, all of the factors are modifiable and changeable and can be improved.
And that policy systems and environmental change are going to be an important piece to improving any of these different factor areas.
Programs are important, but policy change to support an environment that supports healthy choices and making sure that people have healthy opportunities is going to be essential to creating a healthy community. 
So, as I mentioned when we were looking at that tax action -- 
take action cycle, we have an action center.
This is an online guides and resources and tools to help you figure out how to work through each of these different steps in the action cycle.
So, again, whether you are starting with assessed needs and resources, trying to select priorities, you're just coming together as a community and figuring out who partners should be and how to build relationships with each other, there are guides and activities to walk you through each of those steps.
So if you would click on the work together icon there, it would take you into the work together guide.
It is broken down into key activitiesactivities, and then you can do the same for each of the other steps as well.
We also have the partner guides.
So, you know, guides for community members.
Guides for education or business partners, and it gives you some specific tools and ideas around how you can engage as part of a community health improvement collaborative. 
There we go.
So, going back to this model again, we know that as communities are working to improve health, they often want to know what are other communities doing in this area?
What do we know that works?
What are some investor promising practices in each of these areas that we might be working on in our own community?
We have a tool called what works for health.
Because evidence matters.
We want to make sure that we're making smart decisions, smart investments, using our resources wisely.
We want to be able to inform decisions and make sure that, you know, where there is evidence, we're considering that, and where there isn't evidence, that we know that there is not and we need to be innovative and maybe contribute to that evidence base.
So, the evidence base that we have, as I mentioned, is called what works for health, a data base of over 300 strategies organized by the different health factor areas.
You can click on any area and see what strategies are available.
Organized by evidence of effectiveeffectiveness, things that are scientifically supported, things that are expert opinion recommended, and where there is mixed evidence or evidence that it is not effective or doesn't work.
We want to give you, again, information to inform your decisions, not to tell you what to do.
To say here are things that we know that have worked in other communities.
Here are things that are likely a good idea.
We're not sure if they work yet but communities are trying them out.
If you do evaluate -- it is a great starting point if you are trying to think about what can we do as a community to improve health around these specific areas? 
And there is a four-minute tutorial if you go into the what works for health data base.
You can get there from the roadmaps drop-down menu on the web site.
That tutorial will walk you through how to navigate through that data base and how to find different strategies that you might want to consider for your community. 
The choose guide in the action center also will help you to think about what else you need to consider besides evidence.
Because we know that the answer to what works, versus what works here can sometimes be different.
So that will help you to think about what specifically would be a good strategy or the best strategy for your community. 
Finally, as you are exploring the data, exploring the action center, looking through what works for health, if you have questions, you're not sure where to find something or you're not sure you understand something you found, we have community coaches that are available.
I am one of those coaches.
There are 10 others around the U.S., four based here in Madison, and seven others based throughout the U.S.
That are available to help answer your questions.
You can learn more about community coaching on the about tab, which is under the more tab on the top menu on the home page, which is CountyHealthRankings.org.
And if you also are part of a community collaborative that is doing some good work but you get stuck at times, you can reach out and connect with the community coach and we can help you to work through a challenge or barrier either in a few emails or phone calls or sometimes in a much longer coaching engagement.
I also want to mention for those of you who are in a community that you feel like you're already well on your way and doing some great work, we have the RWJF culture of health prize to recognize and award communities that are really already working together to solve those broad health problems, those broad health issues in a community.
Drivers of health that are looking at policy, long-term solutions, measuring and sharing progress.
So, if you feel like your community is really well on its way in this journey, we want to be able to share that with other communities around the U.S. and so we do have a culture of health prize.
Right now in the review process for the 2015 prize, but applications for the 2016 prize will be coming out in August.
So keep your eyes open for that. 
You can also look at our -- go to the web site and look at the prize winners.
Great communities to learn from and see what other communities are doing around, again, building a culture of health.
There is videos that go with each of these communities and some stories on the web site. 
To quickly summarize, we know that where we live matters to our health.
This is why we do county-based information.
We know there are great disparities in health based on where we live.
And we know that health is more than health care.
There are a lot of different factors that contribute to health and we all have a role to play to make our community the healthiest place it can be for everyone.
And, again, the web site is CountyHealthRankings.org.
I encourage you to go there to explore both your data and the action center and what works for health, look at those prize communities to get some ideas of what is possible when communities are on this journey are already doing good work.
And with that, I know that was really fast and high level, but if there are questions, I would be happy to answer them. 
>> Thank you so much, Kate, and thank you also for sharing the additional information you provided about webinars from the county health rankings and roadmaps project and how folks can stay connected to the work.
We did have a question come through wondering if those communities, culture of health prize recipients, are those examples of how communities are using and sharing the roadmap data specifically in their work?
>> I'm going to go back to that slide.
It is not necessarily.
But they are using the rankings specifically because a lot of this work that the communities are being recognized for has been going on for a really long time.
This process takes a while to really get it engrained into a community.
The rankings started in 2010.
A lot of this work was going on before then.
But it is -- let me go back one more slide actually. 
It is communities that are -- 
these are sort of some of our foundational principles of rankings and roadmaps of this idea of how communities can build a culture of health.
Recognizing communities that are defining health in the broadest possible terms.
When we look at that model, that they're not just thinking about health care or those healthy behaviors that we often think about when we hear health.
But they really are thinking about things like education and employment and income as factors to build a healthy community.
That they're thinking about policy.
That they are really thinking about health for all so that they're making sure that the populations that are most vulnerable, that have the least opportunity for good health are really a focus of their work and part of the work, that they are making the most of resources, creatively using resources and leveraging local resources.
And then measuring and sharing their results.
These are the areas that we look at to see the criteria that we look at when we're looking for prize recipients. 
>> Excellent.
Thank you so much for providing that additional context.
Thank you also as well for sharing the information about the community coaching resources that are available.
I think that really is a great piece of the roadmap.
Thank you. 
So, with that, I will encourage you all to continue to ruminate on questions or reflections that you may have on this portion of the presentation as we will have some more time for questions at the end.
But I will move on to introduce our next presenter, Renee Masters, with the Buffalo and Erie County public Library in New York and we will get to those slides and welcome Renee. 
>> Renee: There we can.
It was not wanting to unmute.
Hello everyone.
My name is Renee Masters, reference and outreach librarian, and you might say that my involvement in "Health Happens in Libraries" has been kind of a natural progression.
It started with a 20-year career in nursing, which included almost 10 years working in community health, making home visits throughout Erie County.
I left nursing in 1998 to pursue my Library degree, and while in school, I worked at the University of Buffalo health sciences library, and later a -- visiting nurses of western New York.
Through those experiences I became acquainted to the needs and barriers of good health in our community.
I also learned the importance of empowering people through improved health literacy.
I did that regularly as a nurse, and I really see its value today especially that people need to understand the information that's out there, be guided to good information, and that's what we do very well in the libraries.
And to implement that in their everyday lives.
I believe the public library, in particular, being a familiar and trusted community institution, that has no hidden agendas.
We are not selling anything.
We are not moving people to certain treatments or resources.
We can be a very effective tool in improving health literacy and creating an overall healthier community. 
And before we embarked on our effort to address the health needs in our community, it is helpful to take a look at ourselves.
We're a library comprised of 37 locations throughout a relatively large geographic area.
We serve close to 1 million in population.
The city of Buffalo, 25 towns, 16 villages, and two Indian reservations are within the borders of our county.
You need to acquire an understanding of exactly who it is that you serve and that as you can see from the overview, it is very diverse.
We, I think, can definitely benefit from resources that we just learned about.
Unfortunately, I didn't even know about the health rankings web site before I got started, but I'll be sharing with you the resources that we did use. 
Prior to our work with the "Health Happens in Libraries" grant, we had already been providing workshops that promoted the use of Medlineplus.gov.
Outreach to local health fairs, tabling events.
We're also a long-standing member of the western New York Library resources committee for health information access.
And that committee is comprised of librarians from throughout western New York that work in a variety of libraries, not just public libraries.
It is very useful to me as a public librarian to have time to collaborate with librarians that work at the health sciences libraries, at the health centers, Kaleida health, Catholic health, and also other university settings.
They're very instrumental in keeping me updated on what's new in the health care arena.
And also giving me a different point of view.
I've also developed online subject guides on health topics, which are generally in the top rankings as far as hits per month from our home page.
We're also a member of the Erie County caregivers coalition, a group of interested organizations that support individuals providing care in their homes, and it is a very large and diverse group with a lot of preformed networking opportunities.
So it is a really great organization to be a part of. 
The health needs in our community are not always self-evident, so don't assume.
That's one thing I would like to share with anyone who is getting started in trying to provide programming.
The tendency is to kind of pick the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, and choose areas of interest that are already well trodden.
For example, breast cancer or heart disease, we definitely need to pay attention to them, but by using our research, we can certainly uncover some more very important issues that are facing our community. 
Also, I would like to encourage folks that are a little leery of dealing with statistics and who might jump in to statistical data bases with a little bit of trepidation, there are statistics out there in formats that are very useful and easy and friendly, like the one that we just saw, that can help you to find the most relevant information and not require, you know, a degree in statistics to understand them. 
Here are some examples of the resources that I consulted in trying to decide what kind of a program to put forward.
First I looked at the New York state Department of Health indicator reports.
It has, I think, material that is similar to the health, county health rankings that we looked at earlier.
But it gives you more of a macro view of what's going on in your state and comparisons with what is going on in other parts of the state and what indicators the health care community is looking at as benchmarks for who's doing well and who is not. 
Also we used the Erie County health department community health assessment.
We found this one to be exceedingly useful.
It includes information on county rankings.
Leading causes of death, and what county has identified as public health priorities.
The best part of that report is that the story that it tells us using the data.
It's very useful and accessible and I have used excerpts from it to highlight what the actual needs are in our community.
And that is available -- they review that about every two years and freely available on the county web site.
Kaleida health and Catholic health, two major providers of health care in the western New York region.
And comparing priorities between these systems and along with the county health department revealed a list of priorities shared among all three of the entities.
The assessment documents give very detailed descriptions of how these issues are being approached, and keep in mind that the issues targeted in these reports often receive attention in the form of dollars and personnel for education and outreach efforts.
In fact, the outreach program supported by the Catholic health women care division introduced me to their nurse practitioner who partnered with me for the Women's Health Fair that we mounted.
So, it was the emphasis that the provider systems placed on this health need that gave me access to more resources that probably wouldn't have been there in any other event. 
There we go. 
As we -- as was highlighted in the rankings talk, they gave a weight of 50% to issues that are not strictly clinically oriented or health behavior oriented, but what we would consider a social safety net.
So, this report that was conducted by the university at Buffalo Regional Institute, took an in-depth look at our area and made the reports very freely available to us.
 Agencies like the Wellness Institute of Buffalo, and grant funding programs that can provide supporting information that can help paint a more holistic picture of the health and well being of your community.
Lining library outreach and health assessments consulted, we found we were more likely to find community partners with a similar focus. 
So, we did our home work.
Where do we go from there?
Once we made this assessment, how do we choose what to do going forward?
Our decision was to do a Women's Health Fair at the Central Library located in downtown Buffalo.
It has a high-profile in the area.
We used women's issues figured prominently in the health assessments that we consulted.
That was why we had the women's focus.
The health fair would bring many agencies under one roof and provide a great opportunity for networking and for finding new partners.
It also would provide a range of information and services for whomever attended.
I think it was a good choice for a first effort in that it really did bring a whole lot of people together in one place where we could work off of one another.
Also the women's focus very conveniently complemented and supported the library's March theme of women's history.
In addition to this, we needed to decide who exactly would attend and when they might be available.
We felt that women from the surrounding community who often visit our library with their young children on a weekday morning would be the ideal target, as well as the women working in office buildings near the Central Library who would already be downtown and not have to deal with transportation and parking.
Many of these women in the surrounding office buildings are facing the issues of raising children and also caring for older family members, and agencies addressing all of those needs were contacted and participated in our program.
Planning the event.
Always start with the end in mind.
What is the goal in providing this program?
And how are we going to measure how effective it will be?
We want our participants to gain by attending the event and the "Health Happens in Libraries" folks were wonderful in working with me to clarify ways that I could capture some of this feedback and be able to use it for improving future events.
Practical concerns like how large an event we could accommodate, where to find agencies to invite and a plan for how the event would flow need to be addressed as well.
Fortunately our library has hosted job fairs and other large events in the past.
So, I had the advantage of having floor plans with table layouts, and knowing that our facilities folks were very familiar with moving large numbers of tables and handling anything that I had to throw at them that was a great advantage and I am certainly aware that not everyone has that.
We're also able to leverage our long-standing relationship with the caregiver coalition of Erie County, to take and forward our event description, along with fillable registration forms via their extensive list serve.
They have connections long-standing throughout the community, and this is the way that we contacted initially vendors or exhibiters for our program, and we also utilized our partner agency, Catholic Health, to attract more -- in fact the bone density testing and some other activities were a direct result of our connections with the Catholic Health system.
And one the word got out, we found that offers just came rolling in. 
Now, for a large event, especially communication is the key.
You have to start by writing down everything you can possibly think of that you may need from tables, to electric outlets, signage, outside publicity, evaluation tools, prizes, extra staff and the list goes on.
In our case, it was necessary to book rooms, work with facilities personnel, deal with the graphics department, and that's only a few of the ancillary assistance that I received.
There will be a lot of balls up in the air.
And certainly it is best to have help in keeping an eye on all of them.
I found it helpful, also, to run through the event in my mind's eye from the point of view of the exhibiter and the attendee.
And by doing this exercise, it seems really simple.
I arrived at some added amenities that I think really made the event very easy and I got some really good feedback from the exhibiters by including things like their parking instructions, directions within the building as to how to get to their individual tables, and also little things like offering coffee and refreshments which were very much appreciated by all of the exhibiters who attended. 
Here are just a few of the pictures from our actual event.
As a project manager, I had a hand in all aspects of the health fair.
And this is just me packaging up some of the prizes. 
Publicizing the event was very important, and especially reaching outside of our usual customer base, and this was accomplished primarily through a local newspaper's health circular, which ran an interview with me, as well as a brief article about the health fair, which provided a good deal of exposure.
We also publicized internally with paper flyers that were sent to all library locations, and information was added to the scroll on the library home page for high visibility.
I enlisted the help of some of my friends and colleagues who had connections with people in the surrounding office buildings and they were very helpful in making sure that our publicity material was posted in break rooms and cafeterias throughout the area downtown. 
Despite the size of the event, the set-up went very smoothly.
As you can see, all hands were on deck for this.
Everyone from facilities to IT knew what was expected of them and I was very fortunate and they came through for me 100%.
I had taken floor plans with table layouts and other directions to our facilities people a week in advance, and they were very appreciative of receiving that communication to help things go smoothly on the day of the event. 
Now, the time finally arrived and fortunately the weather cooperated.
March in Buffalo can be iffy at best.
We did manage to bring out a little bit of sunshine, and get enough foot traffic to enter through our doors.
I collaborated with our in-house graphics department to design and create a variety of materials.
We had outdoor signage along with a sandwich board inside, trifold pamphlets, speaker and demonstration times, screenings available and exhibiters who participated.
Evaluation materials and feedback board for attendees where they could write with sharpees completing the sentence "good health is important to me because -- and I was interested to see what was written on there at the end of the program.
This is just a little visual of planned parenthood, national alliance of the mental illness, women and infants and children nutrition, and care center.
These agences were assigned tables throughout the main concourse.
The health information challenge was manned by a member of the western New York library resources council committee for health information access.
Olivia is her name and she is pictured up here in the left.
She created brief quizzes that we used that folks could fill out using the Medlineplus.gov web site.
The goal in that was to slow people down long enough for them to take a look at this wonderful resource, and that was incentivized from offering prizes, a device that worked very well.
We were able to get over 40 people taking this quiz. 
On the second floor, in addition to the health information challenge, visitors were able to receive bone density screening, blood pressure checks, and even get a massage. 
Many attendees engaged the agency representatives in -- 
with questions.
Something we were very, very happy to see.
A comment was made at the end of the fair that should have been for men, too, but we had plenty of gentlemen as you can see here, stopping by and asking questions as well. 
Announcements were made throughout the event alerting visitors to the upcoming speakers and demonstrations so everyone knew where to go to see the next event. 
The food demonstrations, an opportunity to sample, this was very well received.
Our options were limited by a lack of running water and kitchen facilities, but the salsa just acted as a catalyst for discussion about cost of ingredients and how to use foods in different ways.
It engaged the audience and everyone really enjoyed their activity with that.
And by planning these activities and demonstrations, we found that the attendees at the fair in general had a reason to stay on site just a little bit longer to see the next event, and we noticed that folks waiting for the next demonstration used their extra time to linger at the information tables, which was a real plus. 
And by far the highlight of the day was our keynote speaker, who engaged in a frank discussion about unhealthy relationships and their consequences.
Ms. Murphy's organization provides one-stop services for women and men who want to remove themselves from this destructive cycle.
The audience was fully engaged and asked an awful lot of questions.
Many stayed around afterwards and spoke with another representative she had at her table. 
And, lastly, as kind of a wind down to the day, the tai chi society of western New York provided a wonderful demonstration.
Fortunately one of our clerks is actively involved in this organization, and that was another connection we exploited.
Don't underestimate the connections that you may have within your own employees.
Involvement generated a lot of interest among our staff and that motivated them to get up out of the offices and come down and participate in the fair as well.
Lastly, it's time to evaluate our health fair.
We had 44 organizations participating with over 300 in attendance.
We did 40 bone density tests.
We had 12 lucky winners of prizes.
And on our evaluation form, I asked the question whether attendees would wish to be informed about future library health programs.
I had 30 positive responses to that and I now have a nice data base of individuals to stay in contact with on future provision of programs.
40 attendees completed the health information challenge.
And 35 of them used Medline plus for the very first time, which I think was a great accomplishment.
We even had one library employee test her blood pressure and find that it was high.
And the student nurses who were running that particular table were able to explain to her the significance, not just the number, but the significance of that, and she has since made an appointment to see her doctor.
27 attendees spun the info wheel at planned parenthood, and 86% of the organizations who returned their evaluations said that they had met their outreach goals.
We're very pleased by these numbers.
And we were able to collect 22 feedback forms from attendees and 29 out of the 44 exhibiters did give us some feedback, and I think part of the reason for that is we had a packet of information for each exhibiter when they arrived with instructions and reasons why we needed their input, and I think they were having those evaluations in front of them throughout the program, rather than handed out at the end, really increased their willingness to participate in that.
A ton of them said that they preferred -- we got 22 responses from attendees, and 10 of them said they preferred to get their health information from print resources rather than online.
And we found that very surprising.
But it's something that we can use going forward, especially when it comes time to justify the need for print materials.
And what we have learned is that we can run a successful event and that community organizations are eager to participate once they're given the opportunity.
Many of our participants did not realize that the library could host them in this way or that we were open to working with them.
So, just those connections made that day made the entire event worth while.
Connections beget connections.
Once you get hooked in you meet friends of friends and in the Facebook generation seems to be borne out in this as well.
I would encourage people to get out into their community and see what's going on, and attend gatherings.
This logo is for a conversation that our communications director attended, under written by an insurer in our area, got stakeholders in the community together to discuss ways they can improve public health.
The library was included in that conversation and I think it was a direct result of raising our profile and raising our hand and saying that, yes, libraries should be included and that we have a lot to offer.
We're going to continue to move forward and raise our profile in terms of health -- health promotion and wellness in the Buffalo and western New York area.
I'm currently in the process of developing a family dental health fair to be held in August that would feature the mobile dental unit from the university at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine.
I believe this will be just another step on the road to being fully integrated in that woven fabric that we saw early in the program and make a much stronger community as a result. 
So, I thank you all for listening to my overview.
I hope you feel inspired to go forth into your communities and try something different.
You're all capable and you can all make a difference. 
>> Thank you, Renee, for that wonderful overview of your recent event and future plans.
I think one of the things that was resonating for me as you were speaking this idea of connection and I know that you have shared with me in other conversations that you had to reach out to some organizations a couple of times to make, you know, make it clear why you were looking to partner and what the library could bring and I think your persistence and dedication in that space really was a great value to your community.
I want to acknowledge that, you know, the connections that you make and the services that you provide related to health really can and do occur across a continuum.
For example, another library that has -- works with us in this program, put on a one-hour Zumba event with a local instructor who worked with the parks department.
One hour Zumba at the library for all ages and had 38 people attend and that was a great way to raise awareness of the dynamic nature of library services.
Hampton public library in Virginia.
I think that there are many ways that folks can engage and it is a matter of seeing what other organizations are doing.
We had some people note that local hospitals and health departments do community needs assessments and that is a great way to also get data.
We are approaching the top of the hour.
I thought I would address one quick question that came through regarding how you found the agencies that you partnered with, Renee, was that largely through your participation in local meetings or how did you find those organizations?
>> Renee: As I mentioned in the program here, I started out with the connections that I had with the caregiver coalition that already has a very active list serve.
So, providing an overview of what we hope to do, along with the fillable form.
I did a PDF form they could either email it or phone the library to reserve their spot.
And everybody talks to everybody.
And before you know it, I was getting inquiries from all across the health care spectrum.
At the end I was having to turn people away.
It just goes to show you that it doesn't really take that much to attract that amount of attention.
There is a push in the community itself to get the word out.
So many organizations working towards building a more healthy community, and working with each other that if you hold out your hand and say I want to be a partner, there is a hand reaching right back at you.
One thing, caution that I would like to share is that in addition to nonprofit organizations and grass root groups, you will get a fair amount of vendors, what I consider vendors is maybe a dental clinic that's pushing tooth implants or an orthopaedics group, something clearly within an agenda, and I would definitely steer clear of those individuals as part of your overview.
Sometimes they offer snacks or they will offer high-profile speakers, but I think in the long run, you're better off sticking with your nonprofit --
and looking at your community benefit.
How is that talk going to benefit the health needs that you have identified through all of your research. 
>> Excellent.
Thank you so much.
We are at the top of the hour.
We covered a lot of great content today.
I appreciate everybody who has joined us.
I want to acknowledge and appreciate both Kate and Renee for bringing their expertise to this session.
Please do feel free to send any follow-up questions either to me directly or if you have follow-up questions for hour presenters, we will sure to include their contact information in our follow-up.
So, there will be a post survey coming your way.
We love your feedback on this topic and any other topics that you would like to hear about from us.
Thank you all again and wish you a wonderful afternoon.