Health impact collaborative - covid-19 has disproportionately impacted populations placed at higher risks for chronic illness and who are underserved, particularly racial and ethnic minorities

Wake county human services (wchs) aims to reduce these disparities through the development of a health impact collaborative intended to support community health expansion, public/private partnerships for health, and innovative solutions to address health disparities. The health impact collaborative will be implemented through live well wake, a division of wchs which brings together wake county?s major health organizations and community members to address five major priorities from the community health needs assessment: transportation options and transit, employment, access to care, mental health and substance abuse disorders, and housing and homelessness. The health impact collaborative plans to support the following strategies and activities: 1.mobilize partners and collaborators to advance health equity and address social determinants of health as they relate to covid-19 health disparities among populations at higher risk and that are underserved. The health impact collaborative will work through united way to expand social services through seed funds to support cross-sectoral public/private and private/community-based organization (CBO) partnerships to decrease the risk for covid-19. Expansion of social services will align with priorities established through the community health needs assessment to ultimately increase community resilience to current and future health threats and will support cbos to increase access to health services. The health impact collaborative will build on existing community capacity and resources to address social and structural determinants of health, ultimately building systems and partnerships that improve community health. Partners will be selected by the health impact collaborative in the first quarter of the award, allowing for agility based on the c ovid-19 context at that time.2.build, leverage, and expand infrastructure support for covid-19 prevention and control among populations that are at higher risk and underserved; including hiring people from the community who are equipped to assess and address the needs of communities disproportionately affected by covid-19.to further support community health initiatives, the health impact collaborative will coordinate and expand support for community health workers (chws) in communities most impacted by covid-19. Through southeastern healthcare, the health impact collaborative will expand the current number of chws by ten, allowing for a more robust community health structure . Chws have and will play a crucial role in the expansion of services for covid-19, referrals, community-led response structures, and increased access to vaccination. As covid-19 cases decrease, chws will also play a vital role in community alert systems for future outbreaks and can transition to support of social services which impact determinants of health. Through support of chws the health impact collaborative aims to continue to create links between the broader health system, communities, and community partnerships. 3.increase/improve data collection and reporting for populations experiencing a disproportionate burden of covid-19 infection, severe illness, and death to guide the response to the covid-19 pandemicfinally, the health impact collaborative will support saint augustine's university and shaw university to implement developmental evaluations focused on implementation and improvement with the end goal of translating science into community practice. Evaluation will be FED into the community response workstream to inform course-correction, iterative and agile approaches to funding, and influence policy and decision making in the county and within north carolina. University partnerships will also focus on cross-learning related to covid-19, improved data collection, and CHW t