Ohio initiative to address covid-19 health disparities among populations underserved and at high-risk - covid-19 and other medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, copd disproportionately affect…

Ohio initiative to address covid-19 health disparities among populations underserved and at high-risk - covid-19 and other medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, copd disproportionately affect minorities in ohio and those living in rural areas. As a result, these ohioans face worse health outcomes driven by social determinants of health (sdoh) such as housing, access to healthy food, and transportation. With this grant, the ohio department of health (ODH) plans to address the sdoh among this population, address the covid-19 pandemic in these communities, and reduce health inequities.ODH collaborated with many partners in developing the grant application, especially the state office of rural health. The ODH team includes equity and disability specialists who continuously engage vulnerable populations including racial and ethnic minorities, ohioans with disabilities, and rural residents. ODH also collaborated with several state agencies in the development of the grant application, including the ohio departments of education, transportation, medicaid, mental health and addiction services, and administrative services. Local health departments were consulted throughout the process as key implementation partners for this grant, in addition to local non-profits, providers, and philanthropic and community-based organizations.ODH is requesting $8M allocation towards to increase and improve data collection and reporting for populations experiencing a disproportionate burden of covid-19 infection, severe illness, and death. These funds will be used to enhance data tools used by fqhcs, standardize race and ethnicity data, enhance internal and external dashboards, oversample racial and ethnic minorities in brfss data and conduct evaluations. ODH is requesting $7.4M to build, leverage, and expand infrastructure support for covid-19 prevention and control among populations that are at higher risk and underserved. This includes establishing a new office of health equity, expanding ohio?s community health workforce, recruiting and retaining racial and ethnic minorities in providers serving rural and medicaid population and improving collaboration on sdoh through a learning academy. ODH understands the role of community partners and is thus dedicating a large portion of this grant to projects and activities at the local level. $15.5M is requested to mobilize partners and collaborators, with the majority of this funding allocated to creating health equity zones. Each zone will have a collaborative of local volunteer stakeholders such as government and non-governmental entities that then will direct grant funding to local projects to advance health equity.ODH also intends to fund mobility ohio which will pilot a regional transportation resource center (rtrc), a one-stop hub where customers can conveniently schedule safe trips by phone or online.additionally, grant funding will be used to educate peers/paraprofessionals to support behavioral health impacts from covid-19, develop CME and CEU on cultural competency and implicit BAS, establish a collaborative of community influencers, and support community conversations to inform interventions and provide health education. ODH intends to create additional school-based health centers by providing matching funds for start-up costs. This grant will also create internship opportunities in medical and public health professions for students in high SVI communities and provide local non-profits with demonstration grants with interventions to address the sdoh, healthcare quality and access, disease management and health literacy improvement.ODH is well positioned to deploy these projects and utilize these funds effectively. ODH has an array of partners engaged to drive successful implementations. The office of health equity lead, jamie carmichael, was appointed by the governor and has longstanding relationships with grassroots organizations. Her relationships at the local level and alignment with ohio