Webinars:
Diabetes in Special and Vulnerable Populations: A National Learning Series
Diabetes affects more than 30 million people in the United States. Multi-tiered efforts to prevent, treat, and manage diabetes are critical in reducing the burden of diabetes, particularly for medically underserved racial and ethnic minority populations. In addition to higher prevalence, ethnic, and racial minority, patients with diabetes have higher mortality and higher rates of diabetic complications. This session explored important lessons learned from the National Diabetes Collaborative, which made impressive gains in improving diabetes care for the most vulnerable.
Health Effects of Excessive Heat On Underserved Populations
The impacts of climate variability and change on human health has been recognized and discussed widely over the last few years. Evidence shows that climatic conditions influence health outcomes and heat waves are expected to influence essential social and environmental health determinants in the near future. This webinar provided awareness of and a dialogue on the negative social and health impacts of heat waves on special and vulnerable populations.
Presenting Quality Data to the Board – What Questions to Ask
One of the goals of the Health Center Board is to support quality improvement efforts. The involvement of the Board of Directors is a critical component of a successful Quality Management Program. This webinar was for Health Center Grantees and their Board of Directors, and it provided strategies for discussing clinical quality data.
Smoke-free Multi-Unit Housing and Tobacco Cessation Policy
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the American Lung Association (ALA) and the National Center for Health in Public Housing (NCHPH) conducted a webinar exploring the intersection of smoke-free multi-unit housing and tobacco cessation policies. Panelists from ALA, CDC, and NCHPH discussed the smoke-free housing rule for federally owned properties promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and importance of smoke-free multi-unit housing from a public health perspective.
Smoke-Free Public Housing: Reducing Tobacco Use among Public Housing Residents
On December 5, 2016, HUD published a final rule requiring all Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) administering low-income, conventional public housing to initiate a smoke-free policy. The Rule was effective on February 3, 2017 with an 18-month implementation period. Currently, more than 600 PHAs and Tribally Designated Housing Entities (TDHEs) have already voluntarily adopted smoke-free policies, resulting in 228,000 public housing units that are smoke free. Once the Rule has been implemented, another 940,000 public housing units, including more than 500,000 units inhabited by elderly residents and 760,000 units with children, will become smoke free. During the 18-month implementation period, PHAs anticipate that their main challenge will be implementing the ban without smoking cessation programs in place. Health Centers in or immediately accessible to public housing have an opportunity to partner with PHAs and support public housing residents in their efforts to quit smoking.
The Operational Site Visit: A Fiscal Perspective
Site visits support the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Bureau of Primary Health Care’s (BPHC) program oversight role and responsibilities. Operational Site Visits (OSVs) provide an objective assessment and verification on the status of each Health Center Program grantee and look-alike’s compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements. This webinar assisted fiscal staff to succeed in their next OSV.
Uniform Data System Training 2017: Special Populations Webinar Series
The Massachusetts League of Community Health Center is partnering with several National Cooperative Agreement organizations to provide three separate 30-minute webinars on January 10th, 11th, and the 12th. This webinar series addresses each of the three Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) statutorily recognized special populations: homelessness, residents of public housing, and agricultural workers and their families. It is aimed at those who are responsible for gathering and reporting the data elements included in the UDS Report, as well as management and clinical staff who need to understand the definitions and concepts used, and those who use the data in their program management and quality improvement activities.
Learning Collaboratives:
Cervical Cancer Screening and HPV Vaccine Promotion
Most cervical cancers are associated with human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection. Widespread immunization with the HPV vaccine could reduce the impact of cervical cancer not only in the U.S., but worldwide. During this session we explored barriers to HPV vaccination, myths and misinformation about the HPV vaccine, immunization coverage and vaccine financing.
Community-Based Exercise and Weight Control Models
The problems associated with poor diet, physical inactivity, and obesity affect most population segments; however, there are marked disparities in the impact that these problems have on various groups of people, particularly by race/ethnicity and by education level and age are more prevalent in public housing residents. During this session NCHPH explored strategies and programs for community-based exercise and weight control models.
Comprehensive Tobacco Cessation in Public Housing Community Health Centers: Beyond Policy Adoption and Implementation
On December 5, 2016, HUD published a final rule requiring all Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) administering low-income, conventional public housing to initiate a smoke-free policy. The Rule was effective on February 3, 2017 with an 18-month implementation period. Currently, more than 600 PHAs and Tribally Designated Housing Entities (TDHEs) have already voluntarily adopted smoke-free policies, resulting in 228,000 public housing units that are smoke free. Once the Rule has been implemented, another 940,000 public housing units, including more than 500,000 units inhabited by elderly residents and 760,000 units with children, will become smoke free. This learning collaborative offers valuable information on the HUD’s rule implementation, Health Center’s tobacco cessation services, Smoking Cessation best practices from a PHPC grantee, and ALA’s resources.
Housing and Health: Building Partnerships to Support Public Housing Residents
This learning collaborative explores best practices for partnering with Public Housing Authorities and find opportunities to expand health services for vulnerable, isolated communities. Through improved communications and collaborations with housing partners, additional opportunities may emerge to meet the needs of public housing residents and increase access to health care services for populations not currently served.
Improving Diabetes Management in Primary Care: Building Community Linkages to Address the Diabetes Epidemic, Exercise and Weight Control
Past efforts describing clinical and community linkages have laid important strategies to develop prevention programs and exploring specific types of clinical and community partnerships targeted to the improvement of health services for the diabetic patient. Several important initiatives have attempted to demonstrate the potential for clinical and community linkages and to describe the barriers and the solutions to these barriers. The Chronic Care Model acknowledges the importance of linkages with the community for peer support, care coordination, and community-based interventions. Community-practice partnerships are especially important with elders, low-income, and underserved populations. This Learning Collaborative explores Health Center community linkages to address the diabetes epidemic.
Opioid Crisis: Problem, Treatment and Prevention
Opioid misuse, including the non-medical use of prescription opioids, e.g., OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet and the use of non-pharmaceutical or illicit opioids, e.g. heroin and fentanyl, is a fast growing public health problem and primary cause of unintentional deaths nationwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every day 44 people die of a prescription drug related overdose. The National Center for Health in Public Housing, SAMHSA-HRSA for Integrated Health Solutions and Baltimore Department of Public Health recently discussed the opioid epidemic with public housing residents and residents services managers. We offered them educational resources and demonstration of the use of intranasal Narcan (Naloxone) for the emergency treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose.
Smoke-free Public Housing
Comprehensive Cancer Control (CCC) Program Directors and Tobacco Control Program Managers were invited to participate in a Smoke-free Public Housing Workshop on September 25 and 26, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. This activity was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Cancer Society (ACS). The one-and-a-half (1.5) day workshop enhanced the capacity of states to implement a new landmark smoke-free policy aimed at providing a smoke-free environment for public housing residents. Six (6) state teams comprised of representatives from seven (7) organizations were selected to attend the workshop.
Strategies for Diabetes Awareness, Prevention and Control: Focusing on Prediabetes/ Addressing Socioecological Determinants of Prediabetes and Diabetes
The world is in the midst of parallel and rapidly advancing epidemics – obesity and type 2 diabetes – that begun in the latter of the 20th century and continue to grow, unchecked. Currents prevalence rates are staggering and are expected to climb over the ensuing decades. In 2015, health centers in or immediately accessible to public housing served 590,393 diabetics, 186,268 (32 percent) of these patients have a HbA1c>9. This learning collaborative addresses strategies for diabetes awareness, prevention and control, and the socioecological determinants of prediabetes and diabetes.
Publications:
Public Housing is Going Smoke Free
Partnering Key Qualities of Successful Partnerships
Making the Connection with your Community: A Recruitment and Retention Toolkit for PHPC Health Center Programs