About 400 South Milwaukee residents are being be asked to take part in a community health survey, our Health Department reports.
From the press release:
The South Milwaukee Health Department, Aurora Health Care, Froedtert Health, Children’s Hospital and Health System, Columbia St. Mary’s, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, and the Center for Urban Population Health Research are working in partnership to conduct a community health survey. The effort will supplement a prior community health assessment conducted three years earlier with updated data and the ability to analyze trends over time.
The survey will provide valuable data for continued evaluation of community needs and help guide government, not-for-profit, and volunteer organizations as they fashion services to meet the most pressing needs of the community. It will be conducted between now and mid -October.
About 400 area residents will be interviewed by telephone.
“I would encourage all residents of South Milwaukee to help us with this research,” said Jacqueline Ove, City of South Milwaukee Public Health Administrator, “If you are among those who receive a phone call, please take the time to answer the survey questions.”
South Milwaukee Blog 
I hope that whoever is doing the survey for the city engages in some basic telephone etiquette which is lacking in most surveys etc. 1) If you want to have a chance of me even picking up the phone, properly identify yourself on my caller ID. If it says “Unknown”, “Wisconsin call”, “Florida Call”, “Private Caller”, “PPP” or some random 800 number, it is not being picked up. If it says “City of South Milwaukee”, you have a much better chance. 2) If I’m not home or you don’t have an appropriate ID, the message says “Please leave a message”. Therefore, please leave a message. I will intentionally ignore people who can’t follow a simple instruction.
The Center for Urban Population Health??? Since when did South Milwaukee have population health issues? Who are the Stakeholders they keep referring to in their 35 page document? In the executive summary page of the document it states “The Center is organized around a broad definition of population health which focuses on identifying the determinants of health and disease, designing and implementing preventive interventions that promote the health and well-being of populations, and measuring their effectiveness.” Isn’t this what our family doctors are for? It sounds like this survey which is to collect population health data is a bit intrusive. Below is a link to the 35 page document from CUPH http://www.cuph.org/about/history.pdf;jsessionid=3B9FB4870D21348AD7B42CB8A68BD77D
Erik, do you feel South Milwaukee is at risk for some sort of health disaster? What will happen when you get pushback from community members who feel their health issues are private?
sm ok: I think there are distinct roles here. Of course, private health matters are private and should stay private. Those are between you and your doctor. But there is a clear need for fact-based public health initiatives — efforts designed to keep us healthy and safe at the macro level. That’s what this survey is about. That’s what any public health department is about. From offering affordable immunizations to inspecting our restaurants (and the farmers’ market) to tracking communicable diseases — among numerous other efforts — our Health Department provides a valuable service. Studies like this help inform their work. They also are there when we need them most — in potential public health emergencies. And they’ll be there if there ever is a community health disaster. That threat is always there, and they plan for that. If that happens, we’ll all be thankful they do.
According to this document they seem to focus alot on pregnancies and not so much in overall health and well being of a communityhttp://www.cuph.org/projects/birth-outcome-disparities-catalog/material/3381/binary/. It seems they are concerned in controlling the birth population