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Partnerships are important to help reduce disparities in health and health care. We can best meet the challenges facing our communities by working closely with them to determine the best solutions that meet their needs.

Dr. Mathew Lin, Director of the Office of Minority Health (OMH), encourages you to become a partner in the conversation on health equity by submitting a Partnerships in Action story. The OMH at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is highlighting community partnerships among individuals and organizations that share our mission to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations across the country.

OMH will share your stories throughout the year to highlight efforts that help achieve health equity and improve the health of the nation.

Do you have a great story of how a community partnership or collaboration is helping to advance health equity or reduce health disparities? Maybe you partnered with an organization to hold a health fair or blood drive. Or, maybe you worked with a local organization to start a community garden. If so, the OMH wants to hear it and share it with others!

Your story should include:

• Details on the activities you and your partner carried out to help advance health equity
• Description of how this particular partnership made a difference in the community
• Suggestions on how others can create a similar partnership or get involved with your efforts

OMH will share the stories on social media and in other communications to highlight efforts that help improve the health of our communities and the nation. 

You can submit your story via email to OMHMedia@hhs.gov using the following guidance:

• 200 words or less
• Include a URL link to your partnership activity or organization’s website
• Include your contact information (phone and email)
• Use Partnerships in Action in the subject line

Individuals and organizations must ensure that they have permission to submit the story from the organization and subjects. OMH reserves the right to edit, fact check, publish or decline any submission.

Learn more at MinorityHealth.HHS.gov.

The nationwide push to reduce prison populations and bolster alternatives to incarceration has largely neglected women prisoners, according to a report released in January by the Prison Policy Initiative.

Spurred by budget shortfalls and prison overcrowding, dozens of states have sought to reverse incarceration growth by modifying long-term sentences and focusing on violent offenders. But these reforms, which retain bi-partisan support, have ignored the underlying issues that result in the incarceration of women, including trauma, substance abuse issues and mental health challenges, according to the report.

The report, which tracked prison population trends since 1978 for all 50 states, found that in 35 states, women’s incarceration rates outpaced that of men. Nationwide, the reports says, women’s state prison population increased 834 percent, more than twice the growth rate for men. Between 2009 and 2015, the number of men incarcerated in state prisons fell by 5 percent, according to the report, while the rate for women fell by 0.29 percent.

“Behind women’s outsized incarceration rates is a justice system that, by and large, ignores the systemic hardships faced by women,” Wendy Sawyer, the report’s author, told Colorlines. “Women are more likely to enter prison with a history of abuse, trauma and mental health problems. On average, incarcerated women are substantially poorer than incarcerated men, and they are much more likely to be the primary caretakers of children.”

According to Sawyer, in eight states, the growth of women’s incarcerated population has hampered efforts to reduce overall prison populations, even as the rate of incarceration for men is on the decline. Michigan, for example, saw the men’s prison population drop by 8 percent between 2009 and 2015, but the state incarcerated 30 percent more women over the same time frame, per the report. In a handful of states—Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada and New Hampshire—women’s incarceration rates are driving state prison growth.

Although Sawyer’s study focused solely on gender, a previous Prison Policy Initiative study used 2010 Census figures to break down national incarceration rates by race and ethnicity. That study found that Blacks are incarcerated at five times the rate of Whites, and that Latinxs are twice as likely to be incarcerated than Whites. These findings mirror more recent studies. A 2016 study by The Sentencing Project found that in some states—Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont and Wisconsin—African Americans are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of Whites. And nationally, state prisons incarcerate African Americans at 5.1 times the rate of Whites.

The report says that the growth is partly explained by the “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s and ’90s. The law enforcement and sentencing changes created by the national “war on drugs” had destructive effects on women. Other studies buttress this explanation. A 2016 Vera Institute of Justice report found that between 1989 and 2009, arrest rates for drug possession doubled for men, but tripled for women.

The Prison Policy Initiative report notes women face a unique set of circumstances in the prison environment. They are more likely to encounter sexual abuse from correctional staff, and they are more prone to experience psychological distress than men. Given these conditions, the report recommends alternatives to incarceration that treat substance abuse issues and mental health disorders.

The report also concludes that states should reclassify criminal offenses that pose little threat to public safety and expand the use of diversion strategies from the first moment of police contact, so that more women will be redirected from incarceration toward rehabilitative treatments and services. For many low-level offenses, for example, the report says police officers should issue citations instead of arrests. And state governments should stop arresting people for failing to pay fines. Instead, the report says, state and local governments should expand waiver systems and community service options.

“States ought to realize that the women in their care are victims as well as ‘offenders,’” Sawyer told Colorlines. “In response, states should be actively developing alternatives to incarceration and directing women toward those programs, something that, incidentally, would have an outsized positive impact on our justice system as a whole.”

Read more on Colorlines.com.

Ted Matthews drove past acres of fields, racing to meet with a farmer who called threatening to kill himself.

That’s when he got a call from another farmer in a different part of the state who was also threatening suicide. Since he couldn’t be in two places at once, he frantically got on his phone to try to find someone else who could help the second farmer.

Matthews might have the toughest job in the state of Minnesota. As the lone rural mental health counselor for the entire state employed by the Department of Agriculture, he gets 15 calls on a slow day and as many as 40 calls on a busy day. “People constantly talk to me about suicide,” he said.

He has worked alone for more than two decades, but there is now a proposal being considered by legislators this year to increase the number of people fielding calls from farmers and others in crisis by 100 percent — in other words, there would be a total of two full-time rural health counselors, including Matthews.

It’s greatly needed, said Matthews and others who testified before the Minnesota House Agriculture Finance Committee on Tuesday. Nationally, farmers have endured a 50 percent drop in net farm income over the last three years, the largest three-year drop since the start of the Great Depression. And there’s no relief in sight: according to an annual report from the University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota State system, 2017 was another year of thin profits for farmers in the state. Roughly one-third of farmers lost net worth last year, and dairy farmers were hit the hardest, with prices for milk plunging in the second half of the year.

For farmers and those who work with farmers every day, it feels a lot like the farm crisis of the 1980s, when inflation, massive debt and high interest rates forced thousands of farmers out of work.

According to the Census, there are roughly 100,000 farmers in Minnesota, and the most recent downturn has taken a toll on those individuals. A 2016 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found people working in agriculture-related jobs take their lives at a rate five times higher than the general population.

Legislators and Gov. Mark Dayton are considering a number of proposals to tackle the problem this year. Dayton proposed to add another full-time mental health counselor through the Minnesota State system, as well as increase education and outreach about options for farmers in crisis. A bipartisan group of legislators are proposing funding for more mental health counseling options for individuals and families in rural parts of the state, including a proposal from Rep. Jeanne Poppe that’s similar to Dayton’s, transfering funds to the Minnesota State system to add more health counseling support. She’s also authoring a bill to offer a grant to the Farmers’ Legal Action Group, which provides legal aid to farmers struggling with finances or other issues.

More than money problems

It’s not just financial struggles affecting farmers, according to the farmers and advocates who testified in committee on Tuesday. The physical pain from the arduous work of farming can take its toll, and in some far-flung rural areas, farmers don’t have great access to the health care they need. In some cases, farm culture dictates anyone with physical or mental conditions should suck it up and get back to work.

Brad Schloesser, dean of agriculture for the Southern Minnesota Center of Agriculture, said the farming lifestyle is also isolating and solitary, and in their small, close-knit communities, farmers are often worried about how they are perceived by others. That can affect their willingness to seek out help in a public place like a mental health center.

“We are proud individuals, often solitary,” Schloesser said. “[Farmers are] often not the type of people to drive their pickup truck to a place that would identify them to their neighbors as someone who is struggling.”

As the only rural mental health counselor working currently, Matthews keeps his cellphone number posted online, and usually the calls are anonymous. He doesn’t take down names, but lets the caller know that he might check back with them down the road to make sure they are OK. The calls can last five to 20 minutes, and if it gets to that point, he will travel from his home base of Hutchinson, Minnesota, and meet families in person.

There’s no charge for his services — that’s covered by the state — but he’s often not making any diagnosis, either. He’s just there to listen and answer any questions.

“When a farmer calls me they never say anything except, ‘Hi, Ted,’” Matthews said. “Everyone identifies me as Ted, [they don’t ask about my] credentials or [offer] thoughts about those credentials because that makes them uncomfortable.”

More than having an extra counselor working to field calls, Matthews would prefer a situation where he’s not rushing across the state to help someone in the middle of a breakdown. Matthews wants more resources put into training people who work with farmers to recognize signs of depression. The state also recently started a hotline for farmers to call if they are dealing with stress and suicidal thoughts.

“All farmers have lots of stress — it’s a matter of lowering it,” he said. “The idea is not to find people who are really depressed and help them out of that. That is obviously a goal if they are in that position, but the idea is to have a lower stress and lower depression by working with them far, far ahead of those issues.”

Read more on MinnPost.com.

Communities are going above and beyond to focus their work around local social determinants of health as part of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge. Now, midway through the two-year effort, the challenge is recognizing some of the communities that have seen results already.

On Jan. 31, the Aetna Foundation announced that 10 communities participating in the challenge were receiving Spotlight Awards, $25,000 prizes to boost continued efforts to making healthier and more equitable communities, and an additional five were receiving an honorable mention prize of $10,000 for the same.

The Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge is a partnership of the Aetna Foundation, APHA and the National Association of Counties, helping to lift the public health work that is making a difference in 50 small- to mid-size U.S. cities and counties. Since 2016, participating organizations have received funding to make their health efforts reach those whose health needs are greatest.

“Where a person lives has a profound impact on how they live — particularly when it comes to their health,” said Mark Bertolini, MBA, chair of the Aetna Foundation and chair and CEO of Aetna, in a news release. “The Spotlight Award recipients are outstanding examples of how important progress can be made when communities work together to look at the biggest issues facing their neighborhoods and develop healthy, home-grown solutions.”

The award recipients are already seeing their hard work paying off. Debbie Sims, vice president of the East End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone and co-founder of the group’s Pop-up Market & Café of Connecticut’s Bridgeport Coalition United to Reach Equity, knows their efforts are making an impact: She has lived in the neighborhood served by the coalition for 30 years. She said the East End of Bridgeport is the longest-standing food desert in Connecticut, lacking a full-service grocer for 35 years. There, the rate of adults with overweight or obesity is 87 percent.

But that could be changing, as the coalition helped to implement a small community-run grocer, addressing not just access to healthy food, but also community cohesion, job training, business development and violence prevention. Local kids participating in gang violence prevention programs have helped to set up the shop, while union workers have volunteered construction efforts and health departments have provided refrigeration equipment. Groundbreaking could begin soon for a permanent shop.

To expand on that work, Sims said a local church has started growing fresh vegetables as part of its community feeding program, working the produce into Easter events, kids’ activities and healthy, budget-conscious cooking demonstrations.

“We realize that will take time, as we raise funds and work through permitting and the like,” Sims told The Nation’s Health, but noted big changes are already felt within the community. “I am so proud of the work that we are doing.”

Pride is a common theme among Spotlight Award recipients, many of whom have found new ways to collaborate with community partners to improve public health. Kentucky’s West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative is a collaboration between the Louisville Department of Public Health and Wellness and Department of Parks and Recreation designed to ensure every resident has access to a safe and healthy environment that increases physical activity, reduces stress and leads to healthier lives through outdoor recreation, environmental education and a sense of stewardship.

Betty Adkins, MEd, community resource director for the health department, said she was proud to help highlight the work being done with the parks department. She noted how the initiative, led by Bennett Knox, MEM, parks administrator, incorporates trauma-informed care practices to address the needs of the community.

“Public health is everybody’s business,” Adkins told The Nation’s Health. “We’re not going to go out and do Bennett’s work because he does it beautifully, but (we will work) to help shape that and help (the parks department) understand that what they do affects health. I think what Aetna, APHA and NACo did was provide that platform…so we could start the fire in the community and keep talking about it. His amazing work is getting the deserved attention it should.”

In Texas, too, collaboration is showing success in public health outcomes. Emily Green, CHWI, a public health education specialist at the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, said many community groups have come together to make Live Well Waco, an initiative to improve community health and well-being, a successful effort. Highlights of the work in Waco include Mission Waco, which opened a nonprofit grocery store in a food desert; the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market, which offers cooking classes and recipes using foods from the market itself; and the Office of Community Engagement & Service at Baylor University, Waco Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and the Hispanic Chamber, which have worked together to host healthy, culturally specific food demonstrations throughout the year.

“I am continually amazed at the determination from our community partners to improve the lives of the people living in Waco,” Green told The Nation’s Health.“Waco’s various organizations and the people that run them is why we are experiencing such success in the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge.”

Winners of the Spotlight Awards were:

• the Bridgeport Coalition United to Reach Equity, which works to increase food accessibility and living wages;
• the Florida Department of Health’s iGrow Food Network, to decrease food inequality;
• the City of Miami’s Live Healthy Little Havana program, which increases health care access;
• Louisville and Jefferson County Metro Government’s West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative to improve mental wellness and healthy behaviors;
• the Cooper’s Ferry Partnership in Camden, New Jersey, where an initiative is increasing water quality;
• the Chatham Health Alliance, which works to decrease obesity in the North Carolina county;
• the Mecklenburg County Health Department’s Village HeartBEAT program in North Carolina, which is decreasing heart disease;
• the Heart of Texas Urban Gardening Coalition, part of the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, which is increasing access to, and consumption of, fresh foods;
• Danville Pittsylvania County United Fund’s Health Collaborative, which works to create healthy living policies in the Virginia county; and
• the Active Design for a Healthier Thurston County program, part of Thurston County, Washington, Public Health & Social Services’ efforts to increase walkability.

But the award winners are not the only Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge participants doing good work within their communities. All 50 organizations are doing strong work to improve health for residents, said JeVonna Ephraim, MPH, APHA’s project director for the challenge.

Read more on TheNationsHealth.APHAPublications.org.

April 10, 2018 is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (#NYHAAD). Use the CDC’s hashtag #DoingIt to encourage young people and their caregivers to get tested.
 
Capacity 4 Health joins with Advocates for Youth in observing this awareness day, it’s important to recognize the vulnerabilities experienced by young people:

• In 2015 (the most recent year statistics were available), young people aged 13 to 24 accounted for 1 in 5 new HIV cases.
• Young African American and Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual males are disproportionately affected.
• About 8% of all new AIDS diagnoses are made up of youth in the United States. 

The CDC says, “Addressing HIV in youth requires that we give young people the information and tools they need to reduce their risk, make healthy decisions, and get treatment and care if needed.”
 
Nonprofit providers and advocacy groups can help spread the word about the National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day on April 10 by:

• Using #NYHAAD and #GetTested in your social media updates.
• Share this video that features young people discussing why getting tested is so important.
• Issue a press release or write a blog post on April 10th to get the word out.

Resources:

• Find out more about National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day on the HIV.gov website
• Learn about the State of the Youth HIV Epidemic and find related fact sheets from WhatWorksInYouthHIV.org
• View the NYHAAD 2018 toolkit from Advocates for Youth
• Use the HIV Testing Sites & Care Locator from HIV.gov to get tested and find a provider near you
• Read the POZ articles on NYHAAD 2018, Generation PrEP? (about the uncertain future of the HIV prevention drug available), and Vote of Confidence (Supporting youth leaders to address HIV among Latinos)
• Read the Ryan White and National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day post from the Target Center
• Learn about HRSA’s Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) that is investigating social media interventions that can engage HIV-positive youth who are not in care to engage in such services.
• Read the HIV.gov blog post Viral Suppression Among Youth and People Who Inject Drugs Is Improving, But Results Are Still Below the National Average

The call for abstracts is now open for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau’s (HAB) 2018 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care and Treatment. The conference will take place December 11-14, 2018, at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, MD.

This year’s theme is Catalyzing Success: Advancing Innovation. Leveraging Data. Ending the HIV Epidemic.

The 2018 National Ryan White Conference is the largest national conference for comprehensive HIV care and treatment providers and brings together HIV clinical decision makers, direct-care providers, and program/fiscal administrators working in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-supported settings from across the country as well as members of planning councils, board members, national and local stakeholders, federal staff, and people living with HIV.

The deadline for abstract submission is April 30, 2018.

In keeping with the conference theme, six session tracks will serve as the basis for this year’s workshop and poster sessions:

• Increasing access, engagement, and retention in HIV care and treatment;
• Data utilization;
• Leveraging innovative practices to improve outcomes and address emerging priorities;
• Clinical quality management and quality improvement;
• Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program planning and resource allocation: collaborative partnerships and community engagement; and
• Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program fiscal and grant management boot camp.

To submit an abstract for a workshop or poster presentation, visit the conference website. On the website, you can also register for the conference and view the conference agenda in brief.

Learn more on HIV.gov.