Building Healthy Communities by Solving Public Health Problems Upstream
The Rural Health Institute of New York (RHI) works to measurably improve public health through facilitation of targeted community driven initiatives. Based in Cortland, New York, we are a public health institute committed to helping rural communities across the state improve population-level health through use of data, collaboration, and communication.
Working with counties, cities, non-profits, and service agencies, RHI solves public health problems upstream 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.
Our Expertise
We have expertise in three interrelated areas that we use to support the communities we work in. We see these all as different types of public health infrastructure–the systems and processes and relationships that that we can pilot, evaluate, and iteratively improve as we support public health work
Data +
Epidemiology
Our 3 full-time, MPH-holding Epidemiologists support partners with research, data collection/analysis, & project evaluation. We also run annual youth surveys in two counties
Administrative
+ Collaborative
Leadership
Our project directors & database designers use our teaching, coalition management, & grant writing expertise to support funding applications & grant-funded collaborative project
Design +
Health Communications
Our full-time graphic designer works with our full team to produce custom, place-based illustrations paired with evidence-based messaging & marketing strategy
Our Work
Our Projects
Our small team—including graphic designer, epidemiologists, project directors, database designers, and direct service providers—supports a wide variety of topical projects
Our History
Growing from roots as a youth prevention coalition in 2002, RHI has grown to be a leader in data-driven prevention and public health work in rural New York
Our Supporters
Our work is supported by a wide range of partners and key funders. You can learn more about the people who make our work possible here:
Examples of public health infrastructure solutions
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Campaign Library
Library of existing health communications campaigns that partners can easily use or work with us to customize
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Whole Health Youth Survey
Comprehensive, whole-health, annual youth survey shows local needs & trends to drive action based on local data
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Community and Workforce Mental Health Training
Community suicide-alert trainings & a searchable, sortable mental health resource guide to keep resources accessible
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Workforce Capacity Dashboard
We’re working on systems to better track service delivery, fidelity measures, & social service workforce training and capacity across the entire community
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Client/Service Tracking and Reporting Systems
We’ve built systems that work for our on-the-ground staff and for our reporting needs, allowing us to collect real-time data and make real-time changes to how we deliver services
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Early Childhood Development and Literacy Platform
Hello Cortland platform makes local parenting resources, events, & programs easy to access & use
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Lead Poisoning Prevention Tool
A tool that tells people the age of their home, provides information about potential lead exposure risks based on that age, & directs them to local services for testing
Work with us
Learn more about our products and services by visiting our Partner Portal. On the Portal, you can browse all of our data and strategy reports as well as all of the health communications campaigns we’ve built.
Updates & Public Health Notices
45 Crandall Street, Cortland, NY 13045
(front entrance)
50 Pomeroy Street, Cortland, NY 13045
(back entrance through grey gate, with parking lot shared with St. Anthony’s Church)