HHS Announces Grants to Combat Structural Racism
According to an Oct. 3 press release, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of Minority Health (OMH) announced more than $4.8 million in grants to 10 organizations under its Community-Driven Approaches to Address Factors Contributing to Structural Racism in Public Health initiative. The money will support a three-year OMH initiative that aims to find new and innovative ways to deal with policies that create or perpetuate health disparities and therefore contribute to structural racism.
The release says that “Through this initiative, recipients will assess the impact of existing policies and practices and the implementation of new or modified policies and practices to address factors contributing to health disparities and structural racism in health services. Also, recipients will evaluate the extent to which their projects result in increased capacity of community coalitions to assess policy and practice impact within their communities. OMH ultimately expects recipients to address health disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations and to help demonstrate the impact of those efforts on outcomes and the overarching goal of advancing health equity.”
Further, “This initiative builds upon OMH's Framework to Address Health Disparities through Collaborative Policy Efforts initiative, as recipients will utilize the developed assessment framework and tools to help identify policies that may create or perpetuate disparities and contribute to structural racism.”
The recipients will perform their projects across seven states, including California, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, and South Carolina. The project period for the Community-Driven Approaches to Address Factors Contributing to Structural Racism in Public Health initiative began on September 30, 2022.
The recipients include:
- Los Angeles-based AltaMed Health Services Corporation
- Boston-based Boston Public Health Commission
- Silver City, N.M.-based Center for Health Innovation
- Hartford, Conn.-based City of Hartford
- New Canaan, Conn.-based First Candle, Inc.
- Flushing, N.Y.-based Flushing Hospital Medical Center
- Greenville, S.C.-based LiveWell Greenville
- Stockton, Calif.-based Public Health Advocates
- La Jolla, Calif.-based The Regents of the University of California, U.C. San Diego
- Bloomington, Ind.-based Trustees of Indiana University
RDML Felicia Collins, M.D., deputy assistant secretary for minority health was quoted in the release saying that "Structural racism affects the distribution of resources within racial and ethnic minority communities and thus may perpetuate health disparities. For this new initiative, we are pleased to build upon OMH's existing policy assessment efforts through the inclusion of community-focused, multi-sector coalitions. These community coalitions are critical for informing and guiding policy and practice change efforts addressing the impact of health disparities and structural racism within communities."
