Putting Health Equity Front and Center in Community Health Improvement by Empowering, Listening to, and Respecting Community Voices
Document Type
PosterPublication Date
2017-03-03Keywords
Greater WorcesterCommunity Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)
health equity
Civic and Community Engagement
Community-Based Research
Community Health and Preventive Medicine
Public Health
Translational Medical Research
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In 2016, the Worcester Division of Public Health, Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester (CHGW), UMass Memorial and Fallon Health, released the 2016 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP). The CHIP spans nine priority areas, with 31 objectives and 100 strategies with measurable outcomes. The focus is on social determinants of health, with health equity as the overarching goal. This goal will only be achieved if we empower, listen to, and respect community voices throughout the CHIP implementation process. CHGW presents a mechanism for community participation. A community-based structure which is open, transparent, and provides support in all areas of implementation, is being developed. A Steering Committee of residents and representatives from different sectors provides overall direction. Subcommittees provide support in each of four areas - community engagement, resource and development, research and evaluation, and policy and advocacy. Quarterly meetings in each priority area provide structure for reporting progress being made and requesting support. The Community Engagement subcommittee will work to build and maintain participation for each group which is universally inclusive and representative of the diverse organizations and residents of the region. The group will create a plan for ongoing community engagement at each stage of the process and in each focus area. The Research and Evaluation subcommittee, in addition to measuring progress for each strategy, will develop benchmarks for evaluating community engagement. We anticipate improved progress toward CHIP outcomes as the community becomes more involved and is more representative of the population, driving momentum toward health equity.DOI
10.13028/mk6e-by84Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/26689Rights
Copyright the Author(s)Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.13028/mk6e-by84
Scopus Count
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Food Insecurity Campaign: Building Partnerships within Communities to Address Social Determinants of Health and Promote Health EquityCarpenter, Elise; Nohria, Raman; Meyers, Shannon (2018-03-09)Breakout Session 2B: Background Social determinants of health contribute more to our general quality and length of life than the medical care we provide in our communities. To address these needs, the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center has recently launched a food insecurity campaign to reduce barriers and access to food for residents of Lawrence. Our initial pilot data suggests that up to 2/3 of our patients are food insecure. To help address this problem we have partnered with the Greater Boston Food Bank to provide free monthly access to fruits and vegetables and assistance with obtaining governmental support. Recognizing the significant impact food insecurity has on the community, we have also started to engage in community partnerships, particularly with the Mayor’s Health Task Force of Lawrence, Greater Boston Food Bank, and Groundworks Lawrence, to develop sustainable solutions to food insecurity. We also are working to develop an understanding of community needs through community members’ perspectives and experiences of food insecurity. Our goal during this session is to describe how the use of informant interviews and focus groups, community needs assessment resources and stakeholder relationships helps to promote a community-driven movement that can tackle health equity. Purpose To promote and discuss methods of community partnership and community-based participatory research in addressing health equity in communities and healthcare organizations To discuss methods and ideas for community engagement and partnership to address social determinants of health, particularly food insecurity.
-
Communities for Healthy Living: A Holistic Approach to Engaging Head Start Families to Improve Health OutcomesAftosmes-Tobio, Alyssa; Lansburg, Kindra (2019-03-22)The Communities for Healthy Living (CHL) project is a five year, pragmatic intervention trial to reduce and prevent childhood obesity among low-income preschoolers in the Greater Boston area. This workshop will demonstrate the successes and challenges of engaging parents as participants and leaders of a participatory intervention to prevent childhood obesity. Key lessons learned; give insight on how staff and parents were engaged from the outset; and what this type of program can offer diverse groups of parents. With a particular focus on the participatory nature of our work, we will describe the stages of our trial and discuss the current status of the project. Presenters will outline how CHL differs from other childhood obesity prevention trials, and place emphasis on their parent health and empowerment program – the keystone to the project. The presenters will lead the group in several activities taken directly from the parent program, to illustrate how parents of varying backgrounds and literacy levels can be engaged around health topics.
-
Achieving Health Equity: The Role of Innovative Community PartnershipsBoynton-Jarrett, Renée (2018-03-09)Video includes Symposium welcome and introductions. Navigate to 5:30 in the video for the keynote presentation. Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD is Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine, and Director, Vital Village Community Engagement Network. Dr. Boynton-Jarrett is nationally recognized for her expertise in the role of early-life adversities as life course social determinants of health. Through BMC Vital Village Network she has supported the development of community-based strategies to promote child wellbeing and equity and prevent adversity by building community capacities. During this presentation, she will discuss the role of using a trauma-informed framework to promote systems alignment, and innovative, cross-sector partnerships to improve wellbeing and achieve equity. This presentation will review the contribution of early life adversities and adverse social environments to inequities in health, with a focus on the role of social stress as a driver of inequities. One learning objective is to review new medical competencies that consider structural violence and social forces, as a strategy to transform models of practice and care. An additional objective of the presentation is to situate the current use of metrics of wellbeing and improve the utility of metrics to track progress, and implement local improvements over time by sharing examples of how participatory strategies, community engagement, and community-based research methods can be incorporated in the work of Vital Village Network. Finally, the presentation will share strategies for scaling local innovations and the essential role of civic participation for building community capacity to achieve health equity. The BMC Vital Village Network integrates a trauma-informed framework to cultivate partnerships between community residents and agencies and align systems of care and education. This presentation will ask the question of what cross-sector partnerships and innovative strategies arise from a paradigm shift that frames early life adversities as life course social determinants of health.