Office of Minority Health

Grantee Information

Organization: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Prevention (OMH-HDP)

Organization Address: 7th Floor, Corning Tower, ESP, Albany, NY 12237

Phone Number: 518-474-2180

Fax Number: N/A

Organization website URL (if any): http://www.health.ny.gov/community/minority/

Brief Description of the Organization: The Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Prevention (OMH-HDP) was established by Public Health Law in 1992 and became operational in 1994 in the state of New York. The role of the office is to work with individuals, communities, government, and public/private partners to ensure high quality, affordable and accessible health care for all New Yorkers. Among other, the responsibilities of OMH-HDP are to: (a) integrate and coordinate state health care grant and loan programs; (b) promote, support, and conduct research to improve and enhance the health of minority populations; (c) serve as a liaison and advocate on minority health matters in conjunction with the Minority Health Council; (d) assist medical schools and state agencies to develop comprehensive programs that increase the diversity of the health care workforce; (e) promote and support community strategic planning to improve health equity and health care services within minority communities; and, (f) assess the impact of programs, regulations and policies on minority health and health services.

Grant Project Information

Title of Grant Project: Statewide Partnership Initiative

Amount of OMH Award: $200,000

Name of Project Director: Kristen Pergolino

Phone Number of Project Director: 518-474-2180

E-mail Address of Project Director: kristen.pergolino@health.ny.gov

Abstract

A central issue in the overall efforts of the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Prevention (OMH-HDP) is to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. The literature has shown that health care disparities are a product of a complex array of intertwining factors such as structural, social, economic, cultural, linguistic, institutional, financial and other access related barriers. Effectively reversing these trends requires multi-pronged and multi-sectorial collaborative investments focused on increasing access to care, increasing medical insurance coverage, improving the quality of care, and including active participation of the groups most affected.

OMH-HDP will address the topic of Access to Health Services focusing on persons with medical insurance as outlined in the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators. The project will target the City of Newburgh in Orange County, New York which has been identified as having a majority racial and ethnic population (80.3%), demonstrating disproportionately poor health, and having one of the highest rates of uninsured (23.33%) individuals in the state.

The overarching goal of the project is to advance health equity by improving health outcomes in one of New York State’s highest disparity communities, focusing on access to care and increasing enrollment in health insurance programs. Specifically, OMH-HDP will implement the State Partnership Initiative (SPI) by contracting with a qualified lead organization, who with guidance and technical assistance from OMH-HDP, will accomplish the following goals:

• Produce a user-friendly Health Profile of the community that can serve as a resource to a) present health status, socio-economic and health care utilization data including enrollment; and b) establish baseline data to track trends and compare data from baseline to outcomes.
• In partnership with the New York State Health Benefit Exchange, (a) provide training for existing community navigators and community members about the importance of sharing and collecting race and ethnicity data on enrollment forms based on evidence linking accurate demographic data and quality improvement efforts in reducing health care disparities; and (b) increase the number of certified application counselors to assist with enrollment.
• Design and implement community involved, culturally and linguistically tailored, evidenced-based, community change interventions to meet the unique enrollment related needs of residents of the City of Newburgh, using the Health Profile as a benchmark.
• Prepare a report and/or journal article to describe the project; compare data from baseline to outcomes, discuss relevant program process and results; and, make recommendations and highlight lessons learned and implications for future work.

Anticipated outcomes include:

• A Health Profile that provides a baseline of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, enrollment rates and other health indices;
• Improved knowledge and awareness;
• Improved proportion of completed race and ethnicity data on Exchange enrollment forms;
• Increased community capacity;
• Increased enrollment in medical insurance coverage and knowledge on how to utilize and access care;
• An informed and empowered community.

Long-term impacts include contributions to the literature, adding to best practice models, and improved adherence to Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards.

Evaluation measures will include establishing a baseline for tracking enrollment in medical insurance; assessing improvement in the quality/completeness of race and ethnicity data on enrollment forms; increasing navigators knowledge of approaches for collecting race and ethnicity data in a culturally and linguistically appropriate way; increasing the number of certified application counselors available to community members; assessing the community participatory and empowerment process; increasing enrollment in medical insurance coverage; and successful completion of project deliverables.

Process Measures include:

• Completion and dissemination of the Health Profile;
• Number and percent of Navigators serving the City of Newburgh trained in race and ethnicity data collection and the number of community members educated on the importance of sharing race and ethnicity data on enrollment forms;
• Number of community members or newly identified community organizations that have successfully completed the CAC Training and have become active navigators in their community;
• Pre/post-training knowledge assessment score;
• Lead organization identified and contract executed;
• Community forum held;
• Planning Committee formed;
• Planning sessions convened;
• Number of persons attending sessions;
• Community Intervention and Sustainability Plan developed;
• Manuscript Development Committee convened;
• Manuscript Development Outlines finalized;
• Manuscript Development Committee meetings convened;
• Draft Report of findings submitted for review.

Outcome Measures include:

• Proportion of Exchange enrollment forms with complete race and ethnicity client information at baseline and annually;
• Number of identified City of Newburgh community participants lacking health insurance;
• Number and percent of identified City of Newburgh community participants lacking health insurance enrolling through the Exchange;
• Report of findings finalized and shared.

NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR ACTION TO END HEALTH DISPARITIES GOALS

None identified by the grantee.

RELATED HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020 OBJECTIVES & SUBOBJECTIVES

• AHS-1.1 Increase the proportion of persons with medical insurance.