That's a wrap, 2025!
At County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R), we're reflecting on the progress made in 2025 to advance health and equity. We're especially thankful to have worked with our partner organizations to highlight how power and rules — including policies, laws and worldviews — shape community health.
Here is a look back at some of the new resources and tools we created in 2025 to support public health and health care to improve community health and well-being.
Data
We released national, state and county-level data for 90 health-related measures in our Annual Data Release in March 2025. New measures this year include access to parks, lack of social and emotional support, feelings of loneliness and adverse climate events. We included a new national map feature with the release, which offers a broad view of regional and national trends. Visit our county snapshots and national datasets to explore your community’s data.
We hosted a summer data viz challenge, and this fall, we also provided fresh data for our health care provider and mortality measures.
Model of Health
In 2025, we debuted a new model of health. The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute Model of Health expands on two decades of work by naming how power is applied and reinforced through society’s rules to shape our communities and our health. The model broadens our understanding of how well and how long we live by examining who and what influence community conditions and our daily lives.
Our 2025 report, Building Power for Health and Equity, introduces the new model and invites community-led action.
Watch a 2-minute video to learn more.
Webinars
On average, more than 600 people joined our monthly webinars in 2025, which covered topics from bridging across political differences to reduce polarization to ways rural communities can build economic resilience.
Watch all of our webinars on demand here.
Narratives for Health
Narratives for Health continues to build infrastructure for transformative narratives. Over the years, we have trained more than 900 people on the power of narrative at our cohorts and workshops and introduced more than 2,500 people to public health narratives at our orientation presentations.
Explore our resources to build narrative power and advance health and equity here. Thank you to our partners in this work, especially Berkeley Media Studies Group, Health in Partnership, Healthy Places by Design, Narrative Initiative, Population Health Improvement Partners and Praxis Project!
Podcast
We released four new episodes of our podcast on topics ranging from the Land Back Movement to our new model of health.
This year, we also broadcast the In Solidarity podcast series finale.
Tune in to all episodes here.
What Works for Health
We updated 35 and added four new policies and programs to our What Works for Health (WWFH) database, including evidence-informed strategies such as community organizing in public health. We also published two new curated strategy lists on rural health and the structural determinants of health.
In 2025 we also debuted Evi, an AI tool designed to help users find information in WWFH.
Ask Evi questions to determine which strategies are the best fit for your community.
Publications
The CHR&R team researched and authored two publications related to population health and equity in 2025:
Partnership and outreach
We loved connecting with you in the field this year at conferences and events.
At the National Network of Public Health Institutes’ 2025 conference, Defining Public Health Now & In the Future, CHR&R was recognized with the Network Member Impact award for exemplary partnerships and contributions to public health that are measurable in their impact at the regional, state or local level. And we were honored to receive the Ida B. Wells public engagement award from the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Sciences.
Through a year of uncertainty, challenge and change, we are grateful to work in partnership with dedicated and caring people and organizations. Thank you to all those who have stood together for health and equity.
We are hopeful that 2026 will bring new opportunities. We continue to explore new paths for our work, since CHR&R’s funding from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ends in December 2026.
