CDC awards $ 7.5 million grant to Allegheny County Health Department

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded $ 7.5 million in grants to the Allegheny County Health Department to strengthen its public health workforce and address covid-19 and related public health disparities in the county.

“This funding is critical to addressing the ongoing challenge posed by covid-19, and it will help eliminate the health disparities that persist in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County,” said U.S. Representative Mike Doyle, D- Forest Hills. “Strengthening our public health workforce and connecting the community to public health solutions are the types of programs and outcomes that Congress is aiming for in the covid-19 response. ”

The grant will help the Ministry of Health to centralize, support and align existing community health worker (CHW) programs with local community-based organizations and health care.

It will also help create a unified approach to covid-19 training, while ensuring that community health workers can access continuing education opportunities, meet community needs, and quickly adapt to changing covid conditions. -19. The grant will help create a central infrastructure of community health workers and health services to meet community health needs beyond covid-19 through reliable and culturally competent public health staff, wrote the Ministry of Health in a statement.

“One of the challenges that the pandemic made clear was the need for additional community and public health workers,” said Rich Fitzgerald, director of Allegheny County. “And while this funding will certainly help us respond to covid, it is much broader than that, enabling us to address health disparities across a wide range of health issues facing our community.”

The Department of Health will receive nearly $ 7.5 million over three years, of which approximately $ 5.3 million will go directly to community partners to hire and fund community health workers.

In the first year of the three-year grant, the Department of Health will receive approximately $ 2.6 million, of which $ 1.6 million is earmarked for community health worker organizations, $ 330,000 allocated to a Department of Health study to evaluate programs, $ 150,000 dedicated to communications and $ 284,000 funding training and curriculum development.

Funding comes from the Federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES).

“This program is needed to further address health and healthcare disparities and inequalities in Allegheny County,” said Department of Health Director Dr Debra Bogen. “We know there is an increased burden of covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and death among traditionally underserved populations including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants and refugees, with justice involved. and homeless people and mental health issues, including substance abuse.

“We will bring together community health workers and clinical providers who currently serve these populations for continued training and deployment of covid-19.”

The Department of Health plans to partner with a number of community organizations for the program.

Julia Felton is a writer for Tribune-Review. You can contact Julia at 724-226-7724, [email protected] or via Twitter .


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