IPHI Giving Tuesday

Posted on November 29, 2021February 22, 2023 by Taya Jarman

Giving Tuesday 2021: Join Us In Our Fight for Healthy and Equitable Communities

This Giving Tuesday, consider a gift to IPHI as we work to dismantle health inequities and strengthen communities in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) works to improve health systems and policies, enhance conditions that promote health, and build community capacity to ensure equitable health opportunities for all. We believe that all communities should have equal opportunities to live and be healthy. Here are highlights of some of the programs and initiatives we’ve supported in 2021.

Community Health Worker Initiatives: Working with our partners, IPHI helps develop, coordinate, and evaluate Community Health Worker (CHW) initiatives. IPHI conducts CHW and clinical care team training programs; designs, coordinates, and evaluates CHW programs; builds awareness about the value of CHWs across the community; grows and sustains the CHW workforce and CHW services, including laying the groundwork for policy change to enable CHW certification and more sustainable financing; and supports the development of the Center for the Community Health Workforce and CHW professional networks.
The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative is a multi-sector coalition seeking to address substandard housing conditions that contribute to significant health issues affecting District of Columbia residents. The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative envisions a DC where all housing promotes health, wellness, safety, and is affordable. DC will be a city where all are welcome and can thrive in powerful resilient and well-resourced communities.
Healthy and Equitable Communities Training To address the preventable and unjust health inequities found in communities throughout the United States, IPHI offers trainings and technical assistance to organizations and coalitions. Our trainings fuse theory with practice and allow participants to apply the knowledge and tools presented in training and implement them in their everyday work to create healthy, equitable, thriving communities.
ImmunizeVA is a statewide immunization coalition that strives to protect the health and well-being of all Virginians by achieving and maintaining full immunization protection through education, advocacy, statewide collaboration, and the promotion of equity.
Prince George’s Food Equity Council works to improve public health and community well-being of all who live, work, study, worship, and play in the County. The FEC believes every resident, regardless of their race, class, or zip code, should be able to easily access healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate, and locally produced foods. FEC partners and volunteers work to increase food storage and distribution, improving access to food assistance resources, and increasing access to healthy food for food insecure residents at risk for diabetes through enrollment in our food-as-medicine program, Prince George’s Fresh.
COVID Response and Recovery: We continue to partner with the Virginia Department of Health and Fairfax County Health Department to hire, train, and employ COVID-19 public health workers deployed locally for COVID-19 emergency response. IPHI is working side-by-side with VDH and Fairfax County Health Department to contain COVID-19 through effective case investigation, contact tracing, and community outreach and support. IPHI has also launched the Community Health Workers for a Healthy Virginia as a strategic intervention to assist at-risk communities and populations in the response and recovery from COVID-19.

Learn more about IPHI and how your donation can propel IPHI into 2022. For more information including ways you can get involved, visit here.

The Food Equity Council’s COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A One-Year Update

Posted on April 1, 2021 by Julia Groenfeldt

Release Date: April 01, 2021

The Food Equity Council’s COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A One-Year Update

It’s been one year since Prince George’s County saw its first COVID-19 case. Since then, over 79,000 Prince Georgian’s have been infected and over 1,300 have died.

As we mark this somber occasion, the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council (FEC) is looking back on both the health and economic hardship that impacted the county as well as new opportunities that surfaced as members of the FEC stepped up to lead the county’s COVID-19 food security response.

This past year, the FEC saw existing social, health, and economic inequities unearthed and underscored. Prince George’s County, a majority Black county, experienced the highest death rates in Maryland from complications related to COVID-19. Food insecurity, particularly among vulnerable populations, skyrocketed by 20 percent leaving over 150,000 residents food insecure. Unemployment rose as businesses shuttered and families struggled to keep food on the table as school meal services stalled. These disruptions were a shock to our county’s systems, and agencies were unprepared for the social service demands our county residents required.

Seeing this need, last March, the FEC pivoted our work to coordinate the diverse partners and agencies working to address emergency food assistance relief and response. Over the past year, the FEC has:

Created and launched the county’s only comprehensive online food assistance directory in English and Spanish, which has received over 120,000 hits since it launched a year ago;
Provided resident food navigation services including connecting residents to food assistance providers and 211 staff;
Launched the county’s first food recovery platform to reduce food waste and increase food donations to food assistance providers and pantries;
Secured funding to purchase three refrigerated trailers to increase cold storage capacity for food assistance providers throughout the county;
Co-Hosted 20 virtual convenings for over 70 food assistance providers, non-profit partners, and County agencies and leadership in partnership with the Department of Social Services;
Coordinated with our County Executive’s office, county agencies, regional food councils, and the philanthropic community to ensure we are taking advantage of resources available and implementing promising practices and that there is widespread awareness of the food access needs of residents;
Provided direct food donation coordination to partners resulting in over 10,000 daily prepared meals delivered to residents in need at the peak of the pandemic;
Provided County Council members and the County’s Library System with resources to share with their clients and constituents;
Coordinated with food businesses such as regional food hubs, restaurants, farmers markets, and growers to connect them to market opportunities that address both their needs and the needs of food-insecure residents; and
Provided educational resources and advocacy support for food businesses, growers, farmers markets, and restaurants.

As vaccines become more widely available and infection rates slow, there is much cause for celebration. However, at the same time, we know that the food insecurity crisis is far from over. Over the course of the next year, the FEC remains committed to continuing our work to address the food assistance response and support residents and families in need through coordinated resources and information sharing. In addition, the FEC is actively working with the County’s Food Security Task Force to develop recommendations to increase food security and build a more resilient and crisis-ready food system.

We extend our gratitude to the many partners that have and continue to support our work. As a volunteer-based council incubated within the Institute for Public Health Innovation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, the FEC depends on the generous support of community members and organizations. If you are able to support us with a contribution of any size, please donate here.

For more information on the Prince George’s Food Equity Council and to find out how to provide support, contact Sydney Daigle, sdaigle@institutephi.org.

Fairfax County Health Department Partners with IPHI to Expand Contact Tracing Efforts

Posted on May 29, 2020January 9, 2023 by MichaelRhein

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –May 28, 2020

Fairfax County Health Department Partners with IPHI to Expand Contact Tracing Efforts

Today, the Fairfax County Health Department (FCHD) in Virginia announced a new partnership with the Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) to hire and train staff for COVID-19 contact tracing efforts.

Across the country, state and local jurisdictions are ramping up contact tracing as a central component of the fight against the pandemic. Contact tracing is the process of communicating with individuals who have probable or diagnosed COVID-19 illness to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact and potentially exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Public health staff then reach out to those contacts to inform them of their potential exposure. As staff speak with contacts, they help individuals assess risk and share information and instructions for self-monitoring, isolation and staying healthy.

To help the Health Department scale up its contact tracing efforts, IPHI will recruit, hire and train contact tracing staff, community health workers, and other staff as needed who will be deployed to work as integrated members of the FCHD COVID-19 response team.

For more information on the initiative, see Fairfax County Health Department’s press release.

Information on available job opportunities and how to apply for the positions can be found on IPHI’s careers page at: https://www.institutephi.org/careers/

For more information on contact tracing, please visit: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/health/novel-coronavirus/contact-investigations.

Virginia Re-establishes Statewide Immunization Coalition in Response to Falling Immunization Rates

Posted on May 4, 2020January 9, 2023 by MichaelRhein

Virginia Re-establishes Statewide Immunization Coalition in Response to Falling Immunization Rates

With seed funding from the Virginia Department of Health, IPHI is working to re-establish a statewide immunization coalition in Virginia, called ImmunizeVA. The first coalition meeting will take place virtually in May 2020 after the initial launch was postponed in March due to the COVID-19 crisis.

ImmunizeVA is composed of public health professionals and community leaders from across Virginia working together to improve immunization rates in the Commonwealth. The vision of ImmunizeVA is a future where the quality and length of life of Virginians is not decreased by diseases that can be prevented by immunizations. ImmunizeVA will serve as an important and essential strategy to increase and improve immunization rates. With immunization rates falling across Virginia dramatically, the launch of this coalition is absolutely essential to improve coordination, public education and resource development for this critical public health issue.

For more information on ImmunizeVA, email ImmunizeVA@InstitutePHI.org.

Food Equity Council Leads COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland

Posted on April 27, 2020January 9, 2023 by MichaelRhein

Food Equity Council Leads COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland

Since the COVID-19 crisis began in March, the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council (FEC) has been one of the leading organizations for Prince George’s County’s COVID-19 food assistance response. Housed at IPHI, the FEC’s work has focused on coordinating the diverse partners and County agencies working to address the food assistance response and support residents. During the COVID-19 response, the FEC has increased the support and services it provides to vulnerable residents and communities.

During the month of April 2020, the FEC achieved the following:

Provided direct food donation coordination to partners resulting in over 10,000 prepared meals delivered to residents in need;
Conducted resident food navigation services including connecting residents to food assistance providers;
Created and launched the County’s only comprehensive online food assistance directory which has received over 13,000 hits since it launched a month ago;
Coordinated with 211 and the Health Department’s COVID-19 hotline to direct staff to relevant food resources;
Provided County Council members and the County’s Library System with resources to share with their clients and constituents;
Co-Hosted bi-weekly virtual convenings for over 70 food assistance providers, non-profit partners, and County agencies and leadership in partnership with the Department of Social Services.
Coordinated daily with the County Executive’s office, County agencies, regional food councils, and the philanthropic community to ensure we are taking advantage of resources available and implementing promising practices and that there is widespread awareness of the food access needs of residents;
Coordinated with food businesses such as regional food hubs, restaurants, farmers markets, and growers to connect them to market opportunities that address both their needs and the needs of food-insecure residents; and
Provided educational resources and advocacy support for food businesses, growers, farmers markets, and restaurants.

While ramping up efforts to address urgent direct food assistance needs to residents, the FEC remains dedicated to contributing to long-term solutions and building infrastructure to help prepare the County for a future food assistance crisis management.

For more information on the Prince George’s Food Equity Council and to find out how to provide support, contact Sydney Daigle, sdaigle@institutephi.org.

HEAL Grant Helps Increase Safe Space for Bicyclists in Frederick

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Christine Stewart

HEAL Grant Helps Increase Safe Space for Bicyclists in Frederick

HEAL_Bike Lane Markings_Bentz Street

Through funding provided from IPHI’s Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Cities & Towns Campaign, the City of Frederick, Maryland now has nearly six miles of bike lane striping and share use, or “sharrow,” markings, making it safe for residents to bicycle as a method of active transportation and as a commuting option.

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI), through its HEAL Campaign, offered $40,000 to local governments in Maryland and Virginia to implement policies that promote access to nutritious foods and physical activity through a competitive application process in the Spring of 2015. Over 25 communities applied for grants and kick-off awards ranging from $500 to $9,000. Ten local governments, including the City of Frederick, were awarded funds in August 2015 and have until February 2016 to complete the implementation process. For the purposes of this Small Grant Program, implementing a HEAL policy means to put it into effect. Often a lack of financial resources can be an obstacle for local governments to move from adopting a policy to policy implementation.

With its award, the City installed shared use bike striping and signs along Rosemont and Dill Avenues in October 2015. This corridor represents a critical connection between two existing shared bicycle lanes along Bentz Street and Fairview Avenue and passes by the local Hood College. In addition to city residents, students and faculty have benefitted from this project. A bi-annual bicycle and pedestrian data audit is scheduled for April 2016 to formally measure the expected increase in bicyclists using this corridor; a similar built environment improvement implemented in 2011 increased ridership by 40 bicyclists. Please stay tuned in the coming months for more success stories from HEAL Small Grant awardees across the region.

For more information on the HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign, visit the Campaign website at: healcitiesmidatlantic.org or contact Evelyn Kelly, Sr. Program Manager, ekelly@institutephi.org.

Washington, DC Has Greatest Decrease in Premature Births Since 2010

Posted on March 25, 2015 by MichaelRhein

The 2015 County Health Rankings reveal that Washington, D.C. has experienced the greatest decrease in premature births since the launch of the County Health Rankings in 2010

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute have released the sixth annual County Health Rankings. The County Health Rankings show us where we live matters to our health and provide counties with an annual check‐up of their health. The Rankings provide local-level data that allows each state to see how people from one county to another compare on a range of factors that determine health— unemployment, education, community safety, diet and exercise, and other areas to ensure that every community is a healthy place to live, learn, work, and play. Learn more at www.countyhealthrankings.org

The Institute for Public Health Innovation serves as the state-team lead for the District of Columbia for the annual County Health Rankings release. Although Washington, D.C. is not usually compared to other counties due to its unique jurisdictional status, this year’s Rankings reveal that Washington, D.C. has had the greatest decrease in premature births since the initial County Health Rankings release six years ago.

The Rankings also revealed the following national trends:

Premature death rates are dropping, with 60 percent of the nation’s counties seeing declines. But for many counties these rates are not improving – 40 percent of counties are not making progress in reducing premature death.
One out of four children in the U.S. lives in poverty. Child poverty rates are more than twice as high in the unhealthiest counties in each state than in the healthiest counties.
Violent crime rates are highest in the South. Violent crime rates, which affect health, well-being, and stress levels, are highest in the Southwest, Southeast, and Mississippi Delta Regions.
Having a job influences health. Unemployment rates are 1.5 times higher in the least healthy counties in each state as they are in the healthiest counties. During the recession, counties in the West, Southeast, and rust belt region of the U.S. were hit hardest by growing unemployment. Many, but not at all, of these counties have seen their unemployment rates drop since the recession ended in 2010.

Stay tuned for an upcoming event hosted by the Institute for Public Health Innovation and Washington Parks & People in early May 2015 to explore how a variety of factors influence opportunities for health in Washington, D.C.

IPHI’s HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign in the News

Posted on June 20, 2014 by MichaelRhein

IPHI’s HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign gained local press this week in response to two municipalities joining the Campaign:

Leesburg Today covered the Town of Leesburg’s adoption of a HEAL Resolution, which includes policy strategies aimed at improving workplace wellness, future land use and transportation planning, and increasing nutritious foods served at Town-buildings and events.

The Prince George’s County Gazette covered the City of College Park’s adoption of a HEAL Resolution, which sets policy goals for the City that include the adoption of a Complete Streets policy, creating a workplace wellness committee for the municipal workplace, supporting community gardens, and encouraging acceptance of SNAP/EBT benefits at farmers markets.

At the Maryland Municipal League Annual Convention, the Mayor and Council of College Park received a plaque recognizing them as a member of the Inaugural Class of HEAL Cities & Towns in Maryland. The plaque was presented by the Institute for Public Health Innovation. ( May 10, 2014 – Ocean City, MD)

Prince George’s County Food Equity Council Hosts an Open Showing of the Webinar Community Food Councils: Challenges and Opportunities

Posted on April 17, 2014 by MichaelRhein

Colmar Manor, Maryland (April 17, 2014) — In an effort to raise awareness of the importance of local food policy councils and provide an opportunity for members and area councils to learn and share best practices, the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council will host a free public showing of the webinar “Community Food Councils: Challenge and Opportunities.” The webinar is co-hosted by the Center for Enviornmental Farming Systems and the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) School of Government.

WHAT: Webinar Showing – Community Food Councils: Challenges and Opportunities
WHEN: Thursday, April 17th, 2014, 12:30-2:00 pm EDT
WHERE: Colmar Manor Town Hall, 3701 Lawrence St, Colmar Manor, MD 20722

The Prince George’s County Food Equity Council is a local food policy council whose mission is to significantly improve public health, food security, and community well-being of all who live, work, study, worship and play in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The Food Equity Council is one of a growing number of local food policy councils that work collaboratively to identify and propose innovative solutions that advance local food systems in order to spur economic development, improve public health, and ensure environmental sustainability.According to the UNC School of Government, “Community and regional food councils…are emerging as important mechanisms to stimulate the kind of dialogue and concerted action necessary to improve local food systems. These councils are rapidly emerging across the country.”Food Equity Council Coordinator, Sydney Daigle, “Thank(s) UNC’s School of Government for generously awarding the Food Equity Council with a scholarship to host a free public showing of the webinar. Prince George’s County’s rates of obesity and overweight are the highest in Maryland and food swamps densely populate the inner beltway. The Food Equity Council plans to use the promising practices shared by experts and participants to enhance the strategies we use to tackle these issues.”The Prince George’s County Food Equity Council is incubated within the Institute for Public Health Innovation and funded by a CDC Community Transformation Grant. For more information about the Food Equity Council and its three workgroups, Healthy Eating and Nutrition Education, Healthy Food Retail, and Local Food Production, email pgfoodcouncil@gmail.com.

# # #

Prince George’s County Food Equity Council Can Hear the Maryland Crunch!

Posted on March 25, 2014 by MichaelRhein

Suitland, Maryland (March 25, 2014) — In an effort to raise awareness of how school breakfast can alleviate childhood hunger, the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council has partnered with Maryland Hunger Solutions to participate in a Hear the Maryland Crunch! event at Suitland Elementary School. Hear the Maryland Crunch! is a fun and educational event that includes a state-wide, synchronized bite into an apple. Schools and other partners across the state are participating in this event to spread the word that every child in Maryland should have access to a healthy breakfast.

Food Equity Council members will “crunch” with students at Suitland Elementary School to highlight the school’s successful Maryland Meals for Achievement program, a universal school breakfast program. Suitland Elementary Principal Pamela Preston shares, “Breakfast in the classroom has gone well for us. Teachers and students are receptive. I am pleased because it offers students in need another opportunity to be fed without embarrassment.”

The Prince George’s County Food Equity Council is local food policy council whose mission is to significantly improve public health, food security, and community well-being of all who live, work, study, worship and play in the County. The Council recognizes that nearly 13% of all Maryland households struggle with hunger, and lack access to adequate food to help them live an active and healthy life, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Increasing participation in School Breakfast – which reaches 56.5 of low-income students in Maryland for every 100 students that receive school lunch – would help end childhood hunger, as well as boost learning and test scores, improve attendance and student behavior, and improve overall student health.

“School breakfast is a win-win-win for schools, families, and kids. Children who start the day with a healthy meal have improved academic, behavioral, and health outcomes and eating school breakfast helps families stretch tight food budgets and schedules,” says Sydney Daigle, Prince George’s County Food Equity Council Coordinator.

Food Equity Council members will “crunch” at 7:50 am at Suitland Elementary School, 4650 Homer Avenue, Suitland, MD 20746. The Prince George’s County Food Equity Council is incubated within the Institute for Public Health Innovation and funded by a CDC Community Transformation Grant. For more information about the Food Equity Council and its three workgroups, Anti-Hunger and Obesity Prevention, Healthy Food Retail, and Local Food Production, email pgfoodcouncil@gmail.com. For more information about Hear the Maryland Crunch! contact Michael J. Wilson, Director of Maryland Hunger Solutions at 410.528.0021, x27 or mjwilson@mdhungersolutions.org.

# # #