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Wisconsin State Health Plan

Overview

The Department of Health Services (DHS) is required by state statute, Wis. Stat. § 250.07(1)(a), to produce a state health plan for the people of Wisconsin at least every 10 years. These plans, developed with the help of partners and communities from around the state, have served as a public health roadmap for the last three decades.

In pursuit of increased impact and effectiveness, the state health plan is now on a new cycle. It builds on the foundation of our past state health plans, Healthiest Wisconsin 2020 and Healthy Wisconsin. The state health plan is a continuous process with a new state health assessment and health improvement plan once every five years:

  • The Wisconsin Health Assessment provides an overview of community conditions and the health of the people of Wisconsin. It summarizes the data that guides the selection of the priorities for the state health improvement plan.
  • The Wisconsin Health Improvement Plan focuses on these priorities. It works to create and support solutions for better health, with strategies and measures, for collective action by public health partners across Wisconsin.

Our goal is to continue to build upon the community efforts of Healthiest Wisconsin 2020 to improve health in every Wisconsin community.

2023–2027 State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP)

Informed by the 2020 State Health Assessment, the SHIP collaborative prioritization process identified priority areas and strategies for population health improvement, measures, and indicators to track progress, as well as what partnerships will be necessary to implement the full plan. This process was rooted in lifting the voices of the people of Wisconsin in the decision-making process and engaged over 200 partners from many sectors and all parts of the state.

The resulting 2023-2027 SHIP represents a roadmap to community health improvement statewide, a public health agenda and the main policy document for the public health system in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin State Health Improvement Plan 2023-2027 introduces the foundational shifts and priority areas for the 2023-2027 SHIP and will be followed by the implementation plan in early 2023.

The three Foundational Shifts that Wisconsinites identified, or the fundamental changes we must make in the way we do the work of public health, are:

  • Institutional and systemic fairness
  • Representation and access to decision making
  • Community-centered resources

The five Priority Areas that were raised as the most important to address to promote individual, community, and population health are:

  • Social and community conditions, including
    • Economic well-being
    • Supportive systems of care
    • Healthy housing
  • Physical, mental, and systemic safety
  • Person and community-centered health care
  • Social connectedness and belonging
  • Mental and emotional health and well-being

Additional information on the foundational shifts and priority areas is available in the Wisconsin State Health Improvement Plan, 2023-2027, One-Pager, P-01791B (PDF).

This plan reaffirms Wisconsin’s continued commitment to ensuring that everyone in Wisconsin has a fair and just opportunity to live their best life and be as healthy as possible.

2020 State Health Assessment (SHA)

The SHA report, Painting the Picture of Wisconsin's Health, P-03169 (PDF), is grounded in input from thousands of community members in 74 community conversations across the state and the work of many partners and community organizations.

The goal of the 2020-2025 SHA is to Paint the Picture of Wisconsin’s Health. The SHA process followed the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) framework to assess the health conditions, determinants of health and community assets in our state and to collect information across the state about barriers and opportunities for community health improvement. The SHA report is grounded in input from thousands of community members in 74 community conversations across the state and the work of many partners and community organizations.

The MAPP framework incorporated four assessments:

  • Community Health Status Assessment which provides quantitative information on community health conditions, and consists of primary and secondary data.
  • Community Themes and Assets Assessment which focuses on qualitative information about issues that are important to the community members and assets available in the community.
  • Public Health System Assessment which measures how partners work together, and includes public health systems and non-health sector partners.
  • Forces of Change Assessment which identifies external forces that affect communities as well as opportunities and threats associated with those forces.

Related information and reports

SHIP implementation news and updates

Wisconsin Department of Health Services: Centering Health Equity in State Health Improvement Planning: This post, published in August 2024 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030 blog, highlights the WI SHIP team’s implementation approach and alignment with other initiatives, including the federal Healthy People 2030.

Cross-Sector Collaboration to End Homelessness in Wisconsin: This brief published June 2024 in partnership with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) describes one coalition, aligned with the SHIP’s Healthy Housing priority area), that seeks to end homelessness in Wisconsin. 

‘We have to look upstream’: State health officials lay out priorities for improving public health: This Wisconsin Public Radio articles published in February 2023 describes the shift in approach laid out by the 2023-2027 State Health improvement Plan.

DHS Releases Plan to Improve Health and Well-Being of Wisconsinites: This Wisconsin Department of Health Services news release in February 2023 announces the publication of the 2023-2027 State Health improvement Plan summary and names new its priorities.

Glossary

 
Last revised August 22, 2024