Advancing Health Equity and Fostering Collaboration through Black Maternal and Child Health Initiatives
When basic social needs go unmet, they become the principal drivers of health disparities. Recognizing this, the Health Foundation of South Florida has been advancing a collaborative approach that brings together health systems and community-based organizations and paves the way for implementing promising social interventions. Through this approach, the Health Foundation seeks to drive improved health outcomes and greater coordination to address unmet health-related social needs within clinical care settings.
Building Strong Foundations: Addressing the Needs of Diverse Families in New Hampshire
When families have the conditions they need to thrive, children thrive. In 2020, the Endowment for Health, Child Trends, and people in communities across New Hampshire began work that would become the Early Childhood Equity Movement (ECEM). Research in this movement is paving the way for greater equity in family services, services like early care, education, and health care. All families should have access to these services. Too many do not.
Bridging the Gap: How Philanthropy Can Help Public Agencies to Engage Equitably with Underserved Communities
Local public agencies are at a crossroads. Over the last few years, in response to racial justice protests and inequities made more visible by the Covid-19 pandemic, many local public agencies have worked to improve their engagement with low-income and underserved communities—especially communities of color. By adopting equity-centered approaches to community engagement, public agencies can better ensure their policies and programs lead to improvements for communities facing disproportionate health burdens.
A Marathon, Not a Sprint
Community Health Workers (CHWs), also referred to as health navigators, advocates, or promotor(a)s, are trusted community members trained to work with local health care and social services to help clients navigate often complex systems of care, while also improving the quality and cultural competence of service delivery. The United Methodist Health Ministry Fund and Health Forward Foundation have long supported CHWs in Kansas and Missouri, providing grants to organizations to support CHWs in a variety of settings – clinical and community-based – as well as supporting coalition-building, training, research, and advocacy efforts.
Elevating Quality to Achieve Equity in Free and Charitable Clinics: The Work of ‘Roadmap to Health Equity’
Each year, more than two million low-income, uninsured, and underinsured people in the United States rely on approximately 1,400 nonprofit free and charitable clinics and charitable pharmacies for essential health care. These clinics use a volunteer/staff model to provide a wide range of health services including medical, dental, pharmacy, vision, and behavioral health services. Many clinics also address social needs, such as connecting patients to housing, food assistance, or employment assistance programs.
Building Stronger Early Childhood Systems: Reflections from Western Montana
What happened when a regional health foundation team embarked on a road trip and drank 600 cups of coffee with their neighbors? They discovered that Western Montanans were tired of band-aid solutions and frustrated with interventions that always seemed to arrive too late. People wanted to focus on prevention to address problems at their roots. They hoped to see more collaboration between organizations and across sectors and emphasized that solutions should be locally born and cultivated, focusing especially on kids in their earliest years.
The Crucial Role of Philanthropy in Nurturing Equitable Local Journalism
In an era marked by profound societal divisions, the role of local media in fostering democratic health stands as a cornerstone of informed civic engagement. From critical issues like health care and housing to economic opportunity and climate impacts, local journalism is the bedrock upon which communities build their understanding and response. Yet, the field faces challenges beyond the well-documented financial crisis facing local newsrooms, encompassing deep-rooted inequities in newsroom composition and the narratives they convey.
Exploring the Packard Foundation’s U.S. Reproductive Health Initiative
The Packard Foundation has a long history of funding efforts that protect, regain, and expand access to abortion and contraception and funding innovations to expand access to these services as part of its U.S. Reproductive Health initiative. To explore the foundation’s current work, specifically at the state level, Grantmakers In Health’s Miranda Wesley spoke with the Packard Foundation’s U.S. Reproductive Health Director, Elizabeth Arndorfer.
A New Philanthropic Approach to Supporting the Health and Capacity of Rural Communities
To understand health and wellness in rural America, it has been suggested that you need to find a trusted intermediary inside the region that is walking hand-in-hand with the community. Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group describes this type of intermediary as a Rural Development Hub. Rural Development Hubs focus on advancing an asset-based, wealth-building approach to rural community engagement and economic development. This inherently includes increasing the health and wellness of the community and its residents; increasing local ownership of all types of assets from cultural, social, financial to political, attracting external resources and funding; and it always includes low-income, under resourced people and places. Hubs seek to transform regions by treating root causes of multigenerational poverty and disease by shifting the balance of power and developing a stronger power base in the community and with those most impacted by the issues at hand.
Expanding Youth Mental Health in Philadelphia Schools
Youth in the United States are in crisis. Rates of depression and anxiety in children have been on the rise, the result of factors like social media, pandemic related issues like isolation, and trauma from gun violence and poverty. Between 2016 and 2020, diagnoses of depression in youth ages 3-17 increased by nearly 30 percent and were higher for children of color and LGBTQ children according to a 2022 study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.