FY 2020 Grant Awards

Community-based Approaches to Strengthening Economic Supports for Working Families

Grant period: 2020-2023

The Community-based Approaches to Strengthening Economic Supports for Working Families initiative will serve low-income working families disproportionately at risk for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including racial and ethnic minority families. This initiative seeks to determine whether implementation of earned income tax credit (EITC) outreach and education activities in communities at higher risk for ACEs can result in increased EITC receipt and changes in risk and/or protective factors for ACEs.

The Office of Minority Health expects the awarded projects funded under this initiative to:

  1. Establish multi-sectoral partnerships to support EITC outreach and education activities in communities at higher risk for ACEs,
  2. Plan and implement EITC outreach and education activities in communities at higher risk for ACEs,
  3. Develop and implement a process and outcome evaluation plan,
  4. Communicate and disseminate findings, successes and lessons learned, and
  5. Plan for sustainability of successful interventions.

The project period for the grants is September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2023.

GranteesCityStateAward
The Curators of the University of Missouri Columbia MO$448,854
Housing Authority of the City of Tampa Tampa FL$450,000
Methodist Le Bonheur Community Outreach MemphisTN$386,406
Reach Out UplandCA$445,878
University of Maryland, Baltimore BaltimoreMD$441,283
Foundation Communities, Inc. AustinTX$372,555
Panhandle Community Services AmarilloTX$450,000
Orlando Health Inc OrlandoFL$449,336
Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services DearbornMI$434,695
Greater Flint Health Coalition, Inc. FlintMI$436,021
United Way of San Diego County San DiegoCA$449,898
Affirming Youth Foundation, Inc. MiamiFL$450,000
Southwestern Area Health Education Center, Inc. SheltonCT$448,895
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services LansingMI$450,000
Life and Discovery, Inc. FrederickMD$339,779
University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc AthensGA$448,899
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center AlbuquerqueNM$450,000
The Village for Families & Children, Inc. HartfordCT$449,989
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital ColumbusOH$401,355
Empire Justice Center RochesterNY$425,995
Day One PasadenaCA$417,000
Montefiore Medical Center BronxNY$450,000
United Ways of California South PasadenaCA$450,000
Total $9,946,838

State/Tribal/Territorial Partnership Initiative to Document and Sustain Disparity-Reducing Interventions

Grant period: 2020-2022

The State/Tribal/Territorial Partnership Initiative to Document and Sustain Disparity-Reducing Interventions will support projects to demonstrate if modifications to existing evidence-informed interventions for selected health issues will significantly improve health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority and disadvantaged populations. The awarded projects will help build the capacity of state and tribal governmental health agencies to achieve the following two main goals:

  1. Test modifications to existing public health programs or practices (interventions) to assess if the modified interventions are successful in significantly improving health outcomes for selected health issues, and
  2. Develop effective plan(s) to sustain successful interventions after the award period.

Each grantee selected two health areas on which to focus, one from each of the two groups listed below. Grantees are expected to produce health disparities profiles and test interventions designed to improve health outcomes for their chosen areas.

  1. HIV, maternal mortality and morbidity, physical activity, or substance use disorder, and
  2. Nutrition, sickle cell disease and trait, diabetes, Alzheimer&rsquo,s, lupus, or cancer prevention (i.e., addressing risk factor(s) specifically for stomach, liver, or cervical cancer).

The project period for the grants is September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2022.

GranteesTopic AreaCityStateAward
Maine Department of Health and Human Services HIV, DiabetesAugusta ME $300,000
Morehouse of School of Medicine Maternal Mortality, NutritionAtlanta GA $300,000
The Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc. Physical Activity, Cancer (General), NutritionMilwaukeeWI $300,000
Wabanaki Health and Wellness Substance Use Disorder, DiabetesBangorME $300,000
North Dakota Department of Health Maternal Mortality, DiabetesBismarckND $300,000
Utah Department of Health Maternal Mortality, DiabetesSalt Lake CityUT $300,000
The George Washington University Substance Use Disorder, Cancer (Liver)WashingtonDC $299,995
Council on Substance Abuse-NCADD Substance Use Disorder, DiabetesMontgomeryAL $300,000
Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System Physical Activity, Cancer (Cervical)WinnebagoNE $265,004
Arkansas Department of Health HIV, DiabetesLittle RockAR $300,000
American College of Rheumatology Physical Activity, LupusBrookhavenGA $299,975
Office of Health Strategy Maternal Mortality, NutritionHartfordCT $299,837
Total $3,564,811

Demonstration to Increase Hydroxyurea Prescribing for Children with Sickle Cell Disease Through Provider Incentives

Grant period: 2020-2023

The Demonstration to Increase Hydroxyurea Prescribing for Children with Sickle Cell Disease Through Provider Incentives initiative will support the awarded project to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of providing financial incentives to providers to improve the quality of life of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) through increased prescription rates of hydroxyurea. The awarded project will build the capacity of State Medicaid Offices and other partners to achieve the following three goals:

  1. Develop performance measures for hydroxyurea prescribing for the three main provider types that care for children with SCD (i.e., hematologists, primary care providers, and emergency clinicians),
  2. Develop and implement an incentive payment system for each provider type, and
  3. Evaluate the effectiveness of financial incentives for providers to increase hydroxyurea prescribing and decrease emergency department visits for children with SCD.

The initiative will be led by the New York City Health + Hospitals/Queens who will partner with the New York State Department of Health to test the hypothesis that physician incentives can drive the needed system change to increase hydroxyurea use in their patient population.

The Office of Minority Health expects the awarded project to generate data and assess the impact of incentive payments on hydroxyurea prescribing behavior, and support the identification of best practices and lessons learned.

The project period for the grant is September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2023.

GranteeCityStateAward
New York City Health + Hospitals/QueensJamaicaNY$1,250,000

Sickle Cell Disease Clinical Data Collection Platform

Grant period: 2020-2022

The Sickle Cell Disease Clinical Data Collection Platform initiative will support a demonstration project to determine whether a standardized clinical data collection platform, shared across medical centers and other healthcare facilities, can serve as a central repository for analyzing data from large patient cohorts, recruiting patients for clinical trials, assess adherence to evidence-based clinical guidelines, and identifying new areas for research. The project will develop and implement a sickle cell disease (SCD) clinical data collection platform, and create and manage a collaborative learning community of participating clinical care teams and patient/family members to pilot utilization of the shared data collection platform.

This Office of Minority Health funded initiative will be led by the American Society of Hematology (ASH), with the ASH Research Collaborative (RC) and the Learning Networks Program at the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Children&rsquo,s Hospital. This initiative will leverage and enhance the ASH RC SCD Data Hub Program to serve as a nationwide SCD data collection platform, and create a new SCD Learning Community. The platform will leverage longitudinal patient data to help track practice patterns, document and share best practices for improving care, facilitate research, and ultimately work to improve outcomes at a national level.

The project period for the grant is September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2022.

GranteeCityStateAward
American Society of HematologyWashingtonDC$999,563

Reducing Cardiac Arrest Disparities Through Data Registries Initiative

Grant period: 2020-2022

The Reducing Cardiac Arrest Disparities Through Data Registries Initiative will support demonstration projects to show whether participation in an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) registry using standard data collection tools and data infrastructure supports the:

  1. Identification of racial and ethnic minority and/or disadvantaged populations experiencing cardiac arrest, and
  2. Implementation of evidence-informed interventions to improve cardiac arrest survival rates.

The initiative will be led by the University of Vermont and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to help reduce cardiac arrest disparities. These projects funded by the Office of Minority Health will implement state-level processes for contributing to an OHCA data registry, including data collection on emergency cardiac care by emergency medical services and outcomes through hospital discharge. Using data from the OHCA registry, projects will describe the state cardiac arrest rate of occurrence by race and ethnicity and other related factors.

The projects will also enhance the capacity of the state health agencies to implement and sustain evidence-informed interventions that significantly improve health outcomes of individuals who experience OHCA.

The project period for the grants is September 30, 2020 to September 29, 2022.

GranteesCityStateAward
The University of VermontBurlingtonVT$69,997
The University of Arkansas for Medical SciencesLittle RockAR$69,079
Total $139,076

National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC) Initiative

Project Period 2020-2023

The National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 (NIMIC) Initiative seeks to develop and coordinate a strategic and structured national network of national, state/territorial/tribal and local public and community-based organizations that will mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable populations.

The NIMIC initiative is a three-year cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) and the Morehouse School of Medicine to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable communities. The Morehouse School of Medicine and OMH will lead the initiative to coordinate a strategic network to deliver COVID-19-related information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic through:

  1. the coordinated development and dissemination of culturally and linguistically diverse information,

  2. dissemination of information on available COVID-19 testing and vaccination, other healthcare, and social services, especially in geographic communities highly impacted by COVID-19 and at highest risk for adverse outcomes, and

  3. dissemination of effective strategies for COVID-19 response, recovery, and resilience.

The NIMIC initiative is expected to result in: (1) improved reach of COVID-19-related public health messaging to racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable populations, (2) increased connection to healthcare and social services for racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable populations, (3) decreased disparities in COVID-19 testing and vaccination rates among racial and ethnic minority populations in highly impacted geographic areas, and (4) enhanced state/territorial/tribal capacity and infrastructure to support response, recovery, and resilience for racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable populations.

The National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 Initiative cooperative agreement will begin July 2020.

AwardCityStateAward
Morehouse School of MedicineAtlantaGA$14.6m

For questions and inquiries regarding the NIMIC initiative, please contact info@minorityhealth.hhs.gov.