Satcher Health Leadership Institute was recently awarded $500,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in the implementation of the “Political Determinants of Health Virtual Learning Laboratories” program.
This 2-year initiative seeks to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities by mobilizing elected/appointed officials, and community leaders to advance health equity interventions, programs, and policies in their respective jurisdictions. A selective cohort of policy officials and community leaders will be challenged to create actionable steps toward alleviating disproportionate health outcomes by utilizing the Political Determinants of Health (PDOH) framework. Elected/appointed officials and community members will be better equipped to develop and implement actionable solutions to close the health gap. This program focuses on community-based efforts being centered on expanding research as well as programmatic and assessment activities in diverse communities, coalition-building through partnerships, and educating community leaders on the social and political determinants of health and their impact on the communities they serve. This real-time initiative will enable us to approach the disparate nature of the COVID-19 pandemic with solutions toward immediate equitable outcomes.
The proposed initiative outcomes are:
1) PDOH Virtual Learning Laboratory: MSM-SHLI faculty/staff will train elected officials and community champions, by equipping them with tools to examine the PDOH factors influencing their communities and learn how to take actionable steps toward eliminating disproportionate health outcomes.
2) PDOH Community-Based Health Equity Project Proposal: As jurisdictional team members are receiving the instructional portion of the virtual training, they will simultaneously receive support from the MSM-SHLI faculty/staff to develop a health equity-focused project proposal that can be funded and readily implemented in their communities. The jurisdictional teams will present their PDOH Health Equity-Focused projects during the group presentations ceremony at the conclusion of the training program.
3) PDOH Collaborative Community-Based Health Equity Project: Co-led by the jurisdictional team (elected/appointed official and community champion), the PDOH Health Equity-Focused projects will support community interventions that focus on implementing actionable steps targeting health equity and COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Jurisdictional teams will receive funding with strongly suggested evidence of matching funds, to integrate their PDOH-Health Equity project proposals in their local settings.
At the conclusion of the program, we will have identified best practices and strategies for implementing and disseminating a PDOH virtual learning model to disseminate information, inform community-based media in respective communities, and undergird the dialogue among MSM’s current national efforts influencing the Health Equity Task Force and the Black Health Equity Alliance. We will have developed a sustainable platform for policymakers and community constituents to discuss coalition-building techniques, key partner expansion, and engage in strategy development toward achieving health equitable solutions in respective or jurisdictions. The target audience to receive information from this initiative that could influence their work and decision making will cover sectors engaged in government, public health, health services, social and behavioral health services, criminal justice, faith-based organizations, housing, among additional sectors.
This program is now accepting applications, deadline to apply is May 10, 2021.