Culture of Health Blog

Howard County has been the healthiest in Maryland since the Country Health Rankings launched in 2010. NewPublicHealth recently spoke with the county’s executive, Ken Ulman, about how the Rankings have helped drive further progress in improving the health of Howard County. Health initiatives introduced by Howard County have included a program that certifies schools as “Healthy Schools,” if they meet criteria in several areas including nutrition and physical activity, and a smoking ban in all county parks. 

NewPublicHealth: Howard County has been consistently been ranked the healthiest county in Maryland. What key factors do you credit for that?

Ken Ulman: We start with some advantages. We have the blessings of a highly educated population that cares deeply about their community and have good jobs, and many, though not all, have [adequate financial] resources and access to care. We also have the advantage of having a nonprofit, the Horizon Foundation, based in Howard County that is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of people living and working in our county.

So it’s a combination of policy initiatives coupled with a public that really wants to make progress in these areas.

NPH: Have the County Health Rankings helped drive any of your public health and prevention initiatives?

In light of concerns about the nation’s shortage of primary care providers—which is likely to be exacerbated as health reform takes effect—many have argued that nurse practitioners (NPs) can help increase capacity. But because state laws about NPs’ scope of practice vary widely, in some places NPs may not be able to help fill the gap and satisfy demand for primary care services.

A new report from the National Institute for Health Care Reform examines the scope-of-practice laws and payment policies that affect how and to what extent NPs can provide primary care. The report examines laws across six states (Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan) that represent a range of restrictiveness. The National Institute for Health Care Reform is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that conducts health policy research and analysis.

Rather than spelling out specific tasks NPs can perform, scope-of-practice laws generally determine whether NPs must have physician supervision. Requirements for documented supervision—collaborative agreements—are seen “as a formality that does not stimulate meaningful interaction between NPs and physicians,” according to the report. Collaborative agreements can limit how NPs are used in care settings or prohibit them from acting as the sole care provider, and can limit NPs’ range or number of practice settings, which can have serious consequences for underserved rural communities, the report says.

Tamar Mendelson, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health & Society Scholars program (2004-2006). Her research interests include the development of prevention and intervention strategies for reducing mental health problems, with a focus on underserved urban populations. This post is part of a series on the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program, running in conjunction with the program’s tenth anniversary. The RWJF Health & Society Scholars program is designed to build the nation’s capacity for research, leadership and policy change to address the multiple determinants of population health. Mendelson is a member of the program’s 2nd cohort.

Anyone who's ever spread a yoga mat across a floor will tell you that it's about more than flexibility. One of many benefits of yoga is that it helps those who practice it deal with stress in their lives. An emerging body of research points to the conclusion that yoga can have a stress-relieving effect.

One problem with the research base is that it's mostly focused on adults. But grown-ups aren’t the only ones who deal with stress in their lives. Children face it as well, and they often do it without the same resources—emotional, financial and otherwise—that adults have.