National initiative to address covid-19 health disparities among populations at high-risk and underserved, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities - the indiana…

National initiative to address covid-19 health disparities among populations at high-risk and underserved, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities - the indiana department of health proposes to use grant proceeds in the amount of $34,800,194 with a carved-out amount of $7,895,990 for its rural areas. The funding will be used to support 30 community-based partners that currently provide health care, social, economic, and housing services to populations at higher risk, underserved, and disproportionately affected, including racial and ethnic minority groups and people living in rural communities. Purdue health advisors will provide project administration, evaluation, technical assistance, and communication support for selected activities which include: testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and isolation by community health workers at refugee and immigrant serving organizations. Expanding a version of the CDC wisewoman program to include cardiovascular screenings and nutrition and life-style counseling to all people. Addressing the increase in opioid deaths in rural areas. Expanding the viral hepatitis linkage to care program addressing black or african american hispanic, latino or latinx residents, people who are incarcerated, people with substance use disorders, lesbian, GAY, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq+) persons, people living in rural areas, and people experiencing homelessness. Increasing equitable access to healthy food among limited-resource rural populations. Creating produce RX programs enable health care providers to distribute vouchers for free or discounted produce to patients living with, or at risk of, diet-related health conditions such as diabetes or hypertension. Encourage snap customers to use incentives at farmers markets by providing matching incentives. Partnering with the milk bank to provide donated breastmilk to local organizations around the state. Developing and administering a program of community education, prevention, and outreach related to female genital mutilation. Addressing social determinants of health/health equity by community partners supportin g workforce replenishment and enhancement by rural serving entities. Conducting a rapid community assessment to increase vaccine uptake and engaging primary care physicians at the community level. Provide funding and training to rural areas for bicycle and pedestrian master planning. Expand the sexual assault nurse examiner (sane) program. Disseminate data as prepared by the indiana health information exchange (ihie) to local hospitals and county health departments to highlight then current infection rates, vaccine rates, trends. Improve language access capacity at the idoh to structure a comprehensive, standardized resource for community health organizations. Expand telehealth to address behavioral health services including medication assistant treatment (mat) and to provide on-going specialty care and referral assistance. Use existing housing networks to create plans for transitional, supportive housing in rural areas. Infrastructure building for offices of special populations (office of minority health (OMH), office refugee health, and office of women's health) at idoh. Mini grants to community-based organizations to develop and administer a program of community education, prevention, and outreach related to women's health and covid-19. Support for the idoh health equity council and an internship program for the OMH. Support community health workers at refugee and immigrant-serving organizations. Develop and strengthen connections in the health care social safety net for underserved populations statewide, including immigrant populations and the uninsured, both for physical and mental health. Mini grants to community-based organizations to address infant/maternal mortality, substance use disorder, mental health, covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, access to health resources, violence, environmental justice, and s