Sunday, June 1, 2025
6/1/2025
Alaska Behavioral Risk Facto Surveillance System - The State of Alaska is responsible for protecting the health of its residents. Implementing targeted health promotion efforts, evaluating the effectiveness of efforts, improving health and reducing health disparities demands high quality and valid surveillance systems such as BRFSS. Since 1991, the Alaska BRFSS Program has successfully administered the BRFSS statewide, obtaining annual population-based data. It has the capacity and experience to collaborate with partners, stakeholders, and diverse communities to inform health program efforts and make data accessible through a variety of methods, including the online Alaska BRFSS Data Center. BRFSS will use the CDC program logic model to guide strategies and activities, address the identified short-term and intermediate program outcomes, develop clear performance measures to monitor progress on performance outcomes, and make quality improvements over time. The three program outcomes are: 1) More timely access to BRFSS data for local areas; 2) Expanded communication and marketing campaigns with under-represented community partners or advisory groups related to accessing the data; and 3) Greater sharing and use of data among partners who promote health equity within under-represented communities. Each year, BRFSS will collect data and develop the surveillance plan by following the BRFSS Data User Guide and the BRFSS Data Collection Protocol with Disposition Table in close collaboration with its data collection contractor, ICF Macro, and the CDC. A stratified sampling plan will be developed annually that accounts for sub-population geography and cellphone/landline state phone use statistics. It oversamples rural areas of Alaska where there is a higher percentage of Alaska Native residents and includes a minority oversample in Alaska’s largest urban area. It will meet the minimum sample size of 2,500 surveys required for data weighting, with a program goal of 5,000 surveys; above the recommended target of 4,000 for the population size of Alaska. This allows the program to provide reliable estimates when stratified by demographic characteristics and regional areas to identify disparities. BRFSS will build community partnerships through its two advisory groups that involve stakeholders and partners. The BRFSS stakeholder meeting allows the public to learn about BRFSS, why it matters, the data collected, share successes and challenges, and allow BRFSS staff to obtain input from the public for program improvement. The BRFSS survey advisory team determines annual survey content to ensure the survey includes questions that will allow public health partners in Alaska to address Alaska-specific issues, including those that intersect with health inequities. BRFSS will grow strategic relationships with two partners that serve underrepresented adults and/or promote health equity in Alaska through collaborative outreach and education efforts with: 1) the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and 2) the Division of Public Health’s Health Equity Group. The focus of partnership development and expansion, specifically for underrepresented communities, is to promote BRFSS as a source of data, ensure BRFSS data are accessible, and encourage data utilization to support health equity. Outcomes and performance measures will be evaluated using sound methods and will be supplemented with additional evaluation efforts to address process and outcome evaluation questions tailored to the BRFSS program. All evaluation and performance measurement efforts will be used for continuous program and quality improvement. Progress on activities and evaluation efforts will be reported at least annually to stakeholders and as needed to the CDC.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).