When people ask me what the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors does, I tell them that we support state and territorial Members at the local and national level by providing tools, resources, and opportunities for our Members to implement best practices in chronic disease prevention and control.

Our annual, invitational Chronic Disease Academy and our General Member Webinars are some of the more widely known activities of our Association. But we also collaborate with our Members on their own program work in 22 focus areas to reduce the leading causes of death and disability.

For example, the Diabetes Prevention Program’s new National Diabetes Prevention Program Coverage Toolkit, designed with Leavitt Partners and other national partners, supports health insurance plans, employers, and state Medicaid agencies in making the decision to cover the National DPP lifestyle change program.

Additionally, the Reaching Persons with Disabilities in Healthy Communities Program, in collaboration with CDC, the National National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability, and the Lakeshore Foundation, has supported 10 communities in executing inclusion initiatives, making access to healthy lifestyles available for all.

This work, among others, demonstrates that NACDD is a “go-to” organization for partnerships and for funders seeking impactful and efficient use of their limited resources.

A primary reason that we have such strong partnerships and organizational growth is that we prioritize our program monitoring and evaluation. This is one of the reasons we have seen strong growth in grants from the Office of State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support (OSTLTS).

Because our programs with OSTLTS cut across numerous disease and risk factor areas, they often result in multiple, differing program outcomes. For example, across multiple years of program data, we supported 237 objectives and 178 performance measures.

To help us enhance our reporting on this work, we recently developed and implemented a program management data system to monitor and evaluate the performance of program delivery across these multiple funding sources. We were able then to demonstrate that in years 1 and 2, we achieved 100 percent completion of our objectives, and it is expected that data for years 3 and 4 will represent 100 percent completion as well once these projects are final.

This analysis was substantiated by OSTLTS in a recent review of funded program objectives and performance.

These are just some of our achievements supporting leadership, management, and capacity as we help our states and constituents reduce the burden of chronic diseases in our states and nation. As we continue our work together, I am excited to be a part of the growth and influence we can achieve.