CDC awards $7.5 million grant to Allegheny County health department
Share this post:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $7.5 million in grant funding to the Allegheny County Health Department to boost its public health workforce and address covid-19 and related public health disparities in the county.
“This funding is essential to address 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. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills. “Strengthening our public health workforce and connecting the community to public health solutions are the kinds of programs and outcomes Congress intended for the covid-19 response.”
The grant will help the Health Department centralize, support and align existing Community Health Worker (CHW) programs with local community-based and health-care based organizations.
It will also help create a unified approach to covid-19 training, while ensuring community health workers can access continuing education opportunities, address community needs and adapt quickly to changing covid-19 conditions. The grant will help create a central infrastructure of community health workers and health care services to address community health needs beyond covid-19 through a trusted and culturally competent public health workforce, the Health Department wrote in a statement.
“One of the challenges that the pandemic made clear was the need for additional community and public health workers,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “And while this funding will certainly help us respond to covid, it’s much broader than that, allowing us to address health disparities across a broad spectrum of health issues facing our community.”
The Health Department will receive nearly $7.5 million over the course of three years, with about $5.3 million going directly to community partners to hire and fund community health care workers.
In the first year of the three-year grant, the Health Department will receive about $2.6 million , with $1.6 million of that earmarked for community health worker organizations, $330,000 allocated for a Health Department study to evaluate programs, $150,000 dedicated to communications, and $284,000 funding training and curriculum development.
The funding comes from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
“This program is needed to further address health and health care disparities and inequality in Allegheny County,” Health Department Director Dr. Debra Bogen said. “We know that there is an increased burden of covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths among traditionally underserved populations including Black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant and refugees, justice involved and people experiencing homelessness and mental health issues, including substance abuse.
“We will bring community health workers and clinical care providers that currently serve these populations together for ongoing covid-19 training and deployment.”
The Health Department plans to partner with a number of community organizations for the program.