Ed. note: This was originally published on the HHS.gov blog.
Summary: The work of the HHS Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships makes a difference because it impacts real people with real challenges.
The work of the HHS Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (HHS Partnerships Center) makes a difference because it impacts real people with real challenges. One of the best stories that encapsulate what we do was told at a meeting hosted by the White House for African American clergy. A bishop shared a personal story about one of his children who had a preexisting condition. To provide medical care for this child cost the family approximately $2300 per month, meaning there were times when the family actually had to decide what they would eat for the week versus medical provisions for the child. Today, through the efforts of the Partnership Center as well as faith and community leaders, that faith leader’s son has a health care plan purchased through the ACA. His monthly premium is now $23 a month.
Stories like this underscore the role that the HHS Partnership Center and faith-based and community organizations play in deepening public engagement across a broad array of health initiatives.
Promoting Health and Wellbeing
This effort has been most clear in our work on a signature initiative of President Obama and his administration: the Affordable Care Act. From the earliest days of the Affordable Care Act, the HHS Partnership Center held more than 200 webinars, where more than 25,000 participants learned about the protections of the ACA and how the law helps Americans shop for and purchase quality, affordable health insurance. The HHS Partnership Center developed a toolkit of resources explaining the main provisions of the ACA in consumer friendly language.. The toolkit includes fact sheets such as “Key Information on the Health Care Law” and “Brother2Brother,” a tool to talk with men about health care.
The HHS Partnership Center also worked with faith and community organizations nationwide to host “Faith and Community Weekends of Action” outreach and enrollment events during Open Enrollment. These events reached thousands of people with potentially life-saving information about affordable, quality health insurance and helped them enroll. This dedicated engagement by faith and community leaders has contributed to the success of the ACA. As of March 2016, more than 20 million Americans have health insurance and the country has the lowest uninsured rate on record. During the current open enrollment, more than 1 million individuals have already signed up for health insurance in the marketplace.
Addressing Health Disparities
This work extends into impacting the differences in health outcomes that are closely linked with social, economic, and environmental disadvantages that are often derived from conditions where individuals and families live, learn, work, and play. Through its partnership with faith and community leaders, the HHS Partnership Center developed a broad array of initiatives and messaging to help address health equity in minority communities. In 2011, HHS released the Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities - PDF. In turn, the HHS Partnership Center crafted a detailed response to that Action Plan outlining how faith and community organizations could help reduce health disparities in their communities. For example, the HHS Partnership Center conceptualized 100 Congregations for Million Hearts, a faith-based program that raised awareness about cardiovascular disease in minority communities. The HHS Partnership Center convened health equity summits focusing on chronic disease and minority mental health, partnering with stakeholders like the American Muslim Health Professionals, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Health Commission. The Center also coordinated messaging on health disparity reduction through webinars and conference calls.
Responding in times of Crisis
In response to the public health crisis of the H1N1 Influenza virus in 2009, the HHS Partnership Center worked with faith-based and community leaders to ensure local and trusted leaders in communities had information and awareness about the unique and specific challenges during that particular influenza season. The HHS Partnership Center developed easy to understand guides and resources as well as hosted webinars and conference calls. The HHS Partnership Center also participated in meetings and events across the country with both government partners such as the Surgeon General and external partners including Walgreens. And the Interfaith Health Partnership (IHP) hosted at Emory University. Through our collaboration with IHP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the HHS Partnership Center sought to increase H1N1 influenza vaccine and anti-viral distribution capabilities to assure maximum reach to vulnerable and at risk populations. As a result of this partnership and the great work of IHP, more than 4,000 groups and more than 400,000 individuals were connected to these efforts across nine sites. This work lead to multiple years of learning and programming across subsequent seasonal flu seasons extending the reach of influenza prevention services deeper into more communities.
Promoting health for families and children
Serving and connecting services to children and families have also been at the heart of our work for the HHS Partnership Center. Starting in 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama launched Let’s Move! Faith and Communities (LMFC) to build the capacity of faith and community-based health leaders to educate their community members and promote healthier choices, increased physical activity, and access to healthy and affordable food, especially for children. LMFC accomplished its goals through offering resources and evidence-based curricula, designed for community settings, through online and in-person events cohosted with national partners. In 2011, LMFC stakeholders hosted 1,100 new summer food service sites, where low-income students who otherwise wouldn’t have received them were served healthy free meals once school let out. In addition, their communities collectively walked 2.85 million miles, and contributed to the creation of more than 8,500 new fresh-food access points. LMFC has broad reach and engagement, with more than 4,500 faith and community leaders and organizations participating in events and programming. Community leaders have also collectively participated in more than 6,000 hours of web-based educational opportunities.
Strengthening Families
Recognizing the critical role fathers play in helping families flourish, the HHS Partnership Center advanced the goals of the President's National Fatherhood and Mentoring initiative. These efforts have included engaging community-based organizations across the nation to reduce fatherlessness by supporting family- and father-friendly policies, highlighting the importance of fathers in the lives of their children, and developing coalitions to provide resources to help men become better fathers.
Healthier Congregations lead to Healthier Communities
Nothing better sums up our work than words from our partners. For example:
“We partnered with amazing facilitators at Get Covered America and the Department of HHSPartnership Center to reach as many Muslim Americans as possible. We were met with overwhelming support from the Muslim community. Over the course of the enrollment period, we made contact with more than 27,000 people and enrolled more than 1,600 people in high-quality, affordable health insurance plans.” -Khadija Gurnah, Program Manager for the American Muslim Health Professionals’ Affordable Care Act outreach and enrollment efforts.
“Since the day we were founded by Catholic sisters 40 years ago, we have lobbied for access to affordable, quality healthcare. Catholic teachings about the common good and dignity of each person instruct us that this is a basic human right.” - Sr. Simone Campbell Executive Director, NETWORK and Member, Nuns on the Busurban centers.”
"I was able to go to a primary care physician and then to a specialist, and then have tests," he said. "All of that takes health care and from beginning to end somebody has to pay for that. I perhaps would have had to pay with my life." - Rev. Donald Morton, New Castle, DE
As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Our motto is to keep moving forward, recognizing there is still much work to be done.
Acacia Bamberg Salatti is the Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships