For the prior two-year period, the average number of days to resolve a non-compliant neighborhood nuisance complaintm excluding outliers, was 66. Canton City Public Health. Studies suggest that neighborhood factors explain a moderate to substantial portion of the racial disparities in health outcomes.1 Addressing factors like environmental nuisance complaints in a timely manner will have a positive impact on the long-term health outcomes of neighborhood residents. 

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614884/

Canton City Public Health is proud to work with our city's neighborhood assosciations and other city departments, like Canton City's Code enforcement and Law departments, to ensure that city residents receive the best service that we are able to offer. 

Canton City Public Health conducted a quality improvement project to address factors preventing timely resolution of neighborhood nuisance complaints when property owners and/or tenants did not comply with Board of Health orders to abate these nuisances. Root cause analysis revealed that several factors potentially contributed to this issue. Included in the potential causes were:

• Incomplete and artificially low billing for services may have enouraged property owners to allow CCPH to perform cleanup services
• Lengthy notification processes could delay when cleanups were started
• Repeat offenders were not routinely referred for prosecution

To resolve these issues, CCPH will implement several solutions including a study of billing practices, a study of the notification process and a cooperative process with the city's legal department to ensure that repeat offenders are prosecuted when appropriate. 

• Complete a QI project based on this objective - assigned to Rob Knight, Completed
• Implement changes identified during project
  • Revise billing to reflect prevailing rates identified for equipment rental and actual costs for all staff on-site - assigned to Gus Dria, Completed
  • Submit resolutions to Canton City Board of Health - assigned to Rob Knight, Completed
    • Property owners who are non-compliant twice in any 12-month period are required to be referred for possible prosecution, Completed
    • Sanitarian and Health Commissioner may negotiate a reduce rate cleanup fee in order to quickly resolve a nuisance, Completed
      • Write a policy establishing guidlines for negotiated rates - assigned to Gus Dria
• Use approved changes for three months following approval - Completed
• Measure for effectiveness - Completed