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Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Food Insecurity Campaign: Building Partnerships within Communities to Address Social Determinants of Health and Promote Health EquityBreakout 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.
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Communities for Healthy Living: A Holistic Approach to Engaging Head Start Families to Improve Health OutcomesThe 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.
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Achieving Health Equity: The Role of Innovative Community PartnershipsVideo 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.
