Next PageCortland Counts: An Assessment of Health and Well Being in Cortland County

Overview

The Seven Valleys Health Coalition (SVHC), Cortland County Health Department, Cortland Regional Medical Center, SUNY Cortland, and the United Way for Cortland County came together to create Cortland Counts, an annual "Report Card" on the health and well-being of our community.

This sixth annual Report Card for Cortland County provides a brief update of data presented in Cortland Counts: An Assessment of Health and Well-Being in Cortland County, 2005 Edition. As in previous editions, the Report Card is organized into five categories: 1) Health and Safety; 2) Social Cohesion, Culture and Recreation; 3) Employment, Economy, and Welfare; 4) Housing and the Environment; 5) Positive Development Through the Life Stages.

Format

Data from Cortland County are compared to upstate, state and national data. Upstate NY consists of 57 of 62 counties (NY City counties excluded). Single-year data are provided except for those indicators with very few cases; then the rate is given as the average of 3-5 years. This report also includes Healthy People 2010 goals established by the federal government that serve as a guide in establishing our local priorities.

The apple symbol indicates a favorable status while the magnifying glass symbol indicates that the community should take a closer look. The up and down arrows in the last column, “Cortland County Goal,” signal the desired direction of change.

Report Card Comparibility

The data from the first two Report Cards (2001, 2002) are comparable to each other as both were based on post census estimates from 1970-1990. Report Cards from 2003 forward use population projections based on the 2000 census, and some indicators are age adjusted (AA), unlike the first two Report Cards. All versions from 2003 until the next census will be comparable.

Community Participation

A broad-based Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC) was created to assess the data provided from focus groups and citizen surveys orchestrated by the Community Assessment Team (CAT), as well as from other community research and feedback. Using this wealth of knowledge -- subjective and objective -- the BRC identified priority issues and in 2002 created a Strategic Plan with three tracks: economic development, youth, and health.

The BRC meets annually to share progress reports, refine priorities, and update the strategic plan. At the most recent BRC meeting, held in January 2006, a fourth track was added in response to the growing need for better quality, affordable housing.

The Cortland Counts reports form the basis of the county’s plan of action for many community agencies. Local government officials, organizations, and community grant writers delight to find so much information about Cortland County in one place.

Value to Community

Almost everyone knows how important financial capital is for the health of a business. Capital, an accumulation of resources to be invested in the growth of an enterprise, is the life-blood of our economic system. With an adequate supply of financial capital, a business thrives; starve it of capital and it will die.

Public health researchers have been discovering that a similar situation holds for communities; those having a large reservoir of social capital available to their citizens are healthier than those that do not. In communities with high levels of social capital, people live longer, get sick less, and care for one another better when illness does strike. Why?

In a community with a high level of social capital, people have formed many connections among one another that foster trust and cooperation for mutual benefit. The social connections underlying social capital are to be found in civic and religious groups, family interactions, informal community networks, and in habits of volunteerism and altruism. Where social capital abounds, people care about one another, they work together well for their mutual benefit, and they eagerly support one another in times of adversity.

Communities with deep reservoirs of social capital are healthier because the people in them have greater resources that provide support and mutual aid. The trust associated with building the formal and informal networks constituting a community’s social capital can help people effectively act together to build and improve their health care delivery infrastructure, better access health education information, and address cultural norms that may be detrimental to health.

Social capital increases as networks of cooperation grow between individuals and groups. The widening of communications and the deepening of relationships among individuals and organizations in the creation of Cortland Counts has added substantially to our community’s store of social capital. Cortland Counts provides a tool to help us establish priorities to be addressed and regularly monitor our progress toward meeting our goals.

So far, four broad community priorities have been established out of the Cortland Counts process. In each case, an organization (or a coalition of organizations) has emerged to focus on the needs in each of these priority areas:

The value of a community’s social capital increases as the density and intensity of its social networks grows. As social capital increases, individuals care more for one another, and groups of people work more cooperatively and effectively. With the increase of social capital, the health and well being of a community’s members improves. In Cortland County, the social capital that is the foundation for investments in our future is sound and growing.

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