Rural Health Institute of New York

Working with counties, cities, non-profits, and service agencies, the Rural Health Institute of New York (RHI) solves public health problems to make communities and families healthier. We’re able to supplement our partners’ capacity with other kinds of expertise and a flexibility to try new things and learn from them. We collect, organize, and use data to drive action, we efficiently and effectively manage collaborations across sectors, and we clearly educate and communicate about public health–all in an iterative way that builds on and learns from our previous work.

The Rural Health Institute of New York (RHI) is an independent nonprofit dedicated to addressing large-scale public health issues and disparities across rural New York. Initially formed as a Cortland County youth prevention coalition, RHI has evolved over 20 years into a public health institute with expertise using collaboration, improved collection, management, and use of data, and evidence-based communication to improve community health. We have expanded to understand public health holistically, working on harm reduction, vaccines, literacy, mental health, lead, and housing. Our staff of project managers, full-time MPH-holding epidemiologists, database designers, and a full-time graphic designer bring a diverse set of unique skills to:

• Build tools and systems to help to supplement and build partners’ capacity
• Collect, analyze, and use data to inform priorities and strategies
• Design custom, place-based health communications materials and strategies based on local data to educate and encourage healthy behaviors
• Coordinate similar work across agencies or counties, often through collaborative grant applications to ensure that the work is sustainable

RHI has three areas of expertise that we use to help bolster our partners’ capacity to support the communities we work with:

1. Data and epidemiology: Our three full-time, MPH-holding Epidemiologists support partners through contracted data collection and analysis as well as project evaluation/assessment. We administer and analyze county-wide youth surveys in Cortland and Chenango Counties and work with communities to make data accessible and actionable.
2. Administration and collaborative infrastructure: Building on our extensive experience applying for and managing grant-funded projects, we support coalitions and collaborations. We work with partners to apply and adapt our processes, building tools and systems that move us toward shared, measurable goals.
3. Design and health communication: Our full-time Graphic Designer works with our interdisciplinary team and partners to create unique, place-based, illustrations and designs. We pair these visuals with evidence-based messaging, based on local data when we have it, to inform tailored social norming and social marketing health communication strategies.

We see these three areas of expertise all as different kinds of public health infrastructure–the systems and processes and relationships that support and facilitate public health work. Focusing on public health infrastructure allows us to make the most of the similarities between different rural communities, building systems and procedures that provide a strong and well-tested foundation to build on and to tailor to the unique needs of a given community. We can more easily translate solutions from one county to another, and can more easily facilitate regional collaborations, while still centering the needs of the community we’re supporting.

Photo credits: Kristian S. Reynolds