In this brief, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research summarizes information from their evaluation of the 2024 Parks After Dark (PAD) program in Los Angeles County, including innovative “spotlights” that made PAD unique. PAD was a county initiative led by the Department of Parks and Recreation in partnership with other county departments and community-based organizations. In its 14th year, PAD programming — including sports, entertainment, activities, and more — was offered for eight weeks on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 34 parks between June and August 2024.

Findings: Evaluators found that PAD continued to make significant progress in achieving its goals by providing quality recreational programming in a safe and family-friendly environment. PAD provided programming for participants of all ages with a more recent focus on Youth and Seniors.

While ensuring participants’ sense of safety at parks while attending PAD events, PAD also encouraged meaningful collaboration between participating county departments and community-based organizations. PAD contributed to participant’s feelings of well-being, family togetherness, social cohesion, and involved a diverse range of participants in community-driven programming in a meaningful way. PAD may have also helped to reduce the burden of disease for those that engaged in sports and exercise activities.
 

The authors aimed to investigate potential differences between health care use and related payments for patients with complex needs and high costs in Health Resources and Services Administration-funded health centers (HC) and with other safety net primary care providers. They used data from the California Health Homes Program that was designed to improve health outcomes and reduce expenditures of such Medicaid managed care beneficiaries. The authors used 2018 data prior to program implementation and conducted propensity score-matched regressions and then estimated predicted rates of use across seven service categories and payment values for each category and for overall payments.

Findings: The authors found that 29% of the sample were HC patients and had lower estimated average total payment values ($21,220) than group provider patients ($23,180). HC patients also had lower values for hospitalizations and long-term facility stays and higher values for primary and mental health services than all other providers. Payment differences were generally consistent with differences in predicted rates of use. These findings suggest that HC approaches to managing patient care access and integrated mental health services may explain these differences in use and payment patterns.
 

Researchers identify collaboration strategies used to integrate health, behavioral health, and social services for Medicaid members in California's Medi-Cal Whole Person Care Pilot program (WPC). Data were collected as part of the statewide evaluation of WPC. Authors analyzed qualitative data to examine strategies used by pilots to integrate care, network data to identify pilots that improved cross-sector collaboration (i.e., strengthened density or multiplexity of cross-sector ties) following WPC implementation, and comparative case analysis to identify strategies that differentiated pilots that improved collaboration from those that did not.

Findings: Pilots used multiple strategies to facilitate the integration of care. Network analyses identified 10 pilots that significantly improved either density or multiplexity of cross-sector ties, and one pilot with high cross-sector collaboration prior to WPC. Compared to pilots that did not improve cross-sector collaboration, these pilots meaningfully engaged partners in program design and implementation, used braided funds, and leveraged WPC to support broader systems change. These pilots also reported fewer challenges in developing and managing contractual relationships and ensuring meaningful use of data-sharing infrastructure by frontline staff responsible for care coordination.

Data sharing is necessary but not sufficient for systems alignment. Collaboration strategies focused on addressing financial barriers to integration and strengthening normative and interpersonal integration are also needed.

In this infographic brief, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research summarizes information from their evaluation of the 2022 Parks After Dark (PAD) program in Los Angeles County. PAD is a county initiative led by the Department of Parks and Recreation in partnership with other county departments and community-based organizations. PAD programming — including sports, entertainment, activities, and more — was offered for eight weeks on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 34 parks between June and August 2023.

Findings: Evaluators found that PAD has made significant progress in achieving its intended goals through the provision of quality recreational programming in a safe and family-friendly environment. Besides ensuring participant’s sense of safety at parks while attending PAD programming, evidence indicates that PAD may have reduced crime in PAD parks and their surrounding areas since its inception in 2010. In addition, PAD encouraged meaningful collaboration between participating county departments and community-based organizations; contributed to participant’s feelings of well-being, family togetherness, and social cohesion; and involved a diverse range of participants in community-driven programming in a meaningful way. PAD may also have reduced the burden of disease for those that engaged in exercise opportunities.