The Center Helping to Coordinate Healthcare Provider 2020 Census Efforts

At the request of its membership, The Center for Health Affairs has been helping to coordinate healthcare provider 2020 Census efforts. In collaboration with United Way of Greater Cleveland and representatives from the U.S. Census Bureau, The Center has been facilitating bi-weekly meetings that enable hospitals and federally qualified health centers to:

• Obtain updates on the latest resources available from the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Learn about progress being made by local Complete Count Committees.
• Share ideas about how healthcare providers can support Census counts in the communities they serve. 

Healthcare providers are promoting an accurate Census count in a variety of ways including: printing Census information on prescription bags, having staff wear Census buttons, including information in employee newsletters, incorporating Census reminders in telephone hold messaging and including 2020 Census messaging in social media campaigns.  A complete, accurate count is important not only for determining the number of seats the state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives, but it also informs how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding are allocated to more than 100 programs, including Medicaid, Head Start, block grants for community mental health services, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Interested in finding out how many people in your community have responded to the U.S. Census? Response rates, updated daily, can be viewed for the nation, states, cities, census tracts, Congressional districts and more. As of March 31, current 2020 Census self-response rates for Northeast Ohio counties within our membership geography compared to the state and nation are as follows: