Health Equity Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) During the COVID-19 Pandemic

NNPHI is thrilled to introduce the community-based organizations (CBOs) selected for promoting best practices to advance health equity who serve as subject matter experts representing communities that have been most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. CBO’s work highlights topics of interest to OT21-2103 grant recipients as a part of the National Initiative to Address COVID-19 Health Disparities Among Populations at High-Risk and Underserved, Including Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations and Rural Communities. NNPHI engaged technical assistance partners specialized in communications and evaluation to support these CBOs while they developed a series of assets as part of their grant to ensure lessons learned and best practices could be shared with health departments and peers. CBOs showcased many of these assets at the COVID-19 Health Disparities Grant Reverse Site Visit, which took place in March 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

All materials discussed below were supported by funds made available from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Public Health Infrastructure and Workforce through cooperative agreement OT18-1802, Strengthening Public Health Systems and Services Through National Partnerships to Improve and Protect the Nation’s Health award #6 NU38OT000303-04-02. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER)

HACER engages Latino Minnesotans through research and community action to inform institutional policies and promote equitable representation in decision-making processes. HACER hosted three sessions – one in-person and two webinars – covering best practices for reaching Latino communities in Minnesota. Each drew around 60 participants at each webinar. The team also produced a health guide – in both English and Spanish – on this topic and repurposed this content into a number of assets, including this visual executive summary, presentation deck and white paper. The case study, as well as the poster HACER presented at the reverse site visit, demonstrate how HACER bridged the gap between community needs and the resources being provided at the time to ensure that Latinos in the state had equitable access to those resources.

Hope Community Services

HOPE serves Vietnamese Americans and their diverse neighbors in Orange County, California by providing essential services and addressing social determinants of health. Drawing on their experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic, HOPE’s assets cover best practices for collaborations between CBOs and health departments to serve communities that have been systemically overlooked due to the barriers they face in language, culture, sexual orientation, legal status and more. HOPE produced a video that features their leaders and community partners sharing lessons learned from their COVID-19 outreach and community mobilization efforts in order to demonstrate why public agencies should work with CBOs. HOPE planned the video’s production through a narrative arc that included the video’s objectives and audiences, as well as included questions for interviewees. HOPE will use the short video to promote their work among the community and is considering submissions to upcoming health equity-related conferences and film festivals. HOPE showcased their work at the reverse site visit through a postcard and a handout, highlighting their creative and comprehensive approach to addressing health disparities across Orange County.

India Home

India Home supports South Asian and Indo-Caribbean older adults through culturally appropriate social services. The organization aids seniors in finding community through a diverse range of programs and activities, from educational talks on health and nutrition, financial safeguards and elder law, to trips to museums and parks and advocating for themselves at City Hall. Over the first few months of 2024, India Home hosted a webinar series on topics ranging from “Meeting Target Populations Where They Are” to “Mitigating Stigma & Hesitancies Related to COVID-19 and Vaccines” and many more. If you’re interested in learning more the entire webinar series has been uploaded to India Homes YouTube page here.

Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan (ITCM)

ITCM is a consortium of the 12 federally recognized tribes in Michigan. ITCM acts as a forum for their member tribes advocating for the development of tribal regulations, ordinances, and policies applicable to health and human services while also providing technical assistance. Over the course of this grant, ITCM held three webinars on the topics of building trust with Tribes to advance health equity; messaging strategies to reach Tribal communities and funding streams to support rural Tribal communities. They also developed a funder conversation guide for Indigenous and Tribal leaders, organizations and communities to better understand and communicate with potential funders. They also created a two pager on best practices and considerations for non-Tribal entities to use when engaging with Tribal partners.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation RI-Pawtucket (LISC)

LISC forges resilient and inclusive communities across the country and has supported resident-led collaborations to inform community health equity programs. LISC collaborates with residents, local leaders, and community-based organizations that uplift community voices and facilitate local programs. LISC has created a microsite that explores the history of community health in Rhode Island and details the innovative infrastructure that was created in 2015 to deliver community health resources that were instrumental to mitigating the impact of the pandemic. The microsite features this video which follows LISC and their Health Equity Zone community partners and their tailored response to support community health in Rhode Island during the COVID-19 pandemic.  LISC also showcased their work at the reverse site visit through this case study where they highlighted their creative and strategic approaches reaching marginalized communities at the height of the pandemic.

Maryland Latinos Unidos (MLU)

MLU empowers organizations to enhance quality of life and promote equity. MLU challenges power, ensuring that they provide access to resources, opportunities and support those affected by oppression and discrimination. MLU has hosted four well-attended virtual collaborative sessions: “Effectively Bridging the Language Gap Among Latino Communities”, “Integrating Community Health Workers into Healthcare Systems”, “Building Trust in Systems” and “Innovating Data Collection Methods for Improved Latino Representation in Public Health”. These featured speakers representing different levels of the state of Maryland and its counties. The team would plan these webinars through materials such as this curriculum and run of show for their integrating community health workers webinar. The team summarized these collaborative sessions through a handout, Optimizing Public Health Services for Latinos to Advance Health Equity. During the reverse site visit, MLU presented their strategic communications work where they deployed creative strategies to reach their community, alongside a two-pager summarizing this work. MLU also shared a poster on building the organizational infrastructure for an equitable response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland.

Northern Virginia Family Services (NVFS)

NVFS provides resources related to financial stability, emotional well-being, and physical health to ensure that individuals and families in Northern Virginia can unlock their full potential. Through this grant NVFS held important internal conversations on crisis response using lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic responses to support the organization in future crisis and emergency management. They have created a general set of key questions for other similar organizations to consider while moving through a crisis while still offering key services. NVFS additionally authored two blogs on “Community Based Organization’s Learnings from COVID-19: Best Practices for Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Partnership with Public Health Departments,” which is publicly available and shines light on both what made NVFS successful in addressing social determinants of health during COVID-19 as well as ways that public health departments can better foster relationships with CBOs. And a second blog entitled, “Crisis Readiness and Response: Learnings for Community Based Organizations,” that covers the adjustments made by NVFS during the COVID pandemic and additional factors that enabled NVFS’s success through this period.

Raise the Floor Alliance (RTF)

Raise The Floor (RTF)  is an Illinois based non-profit and legal clinic that was founded and works in coalition with 7 worker centers, to ensure low-wage workers have access to quality jobs and are empowered to uphold and improve workplace standards. RTF has created a one pager on recommendations for thinking outside the box with public health departments which details their work with the Cook County Department of Public Health to establish the Suburban Cook County Worker Protection Program (SCCWPP). The first-of-its-kind grassroots worker center and public health agency collaboration, SCCWPP disrupted the spread of COVID-19 and highlighted the workplace as a social determinant of health. RTF also created this training deck and manual which they presented at several worker rights events, including at this event aimed at Chicago advocates in April, 2024. Lastly, the team worked on two health and safety one-pagers; one in English and one in Spanish which served as accompanying materials to their training deck. During the reverse site visit, RTF shared a case study about the social determinants of health.

Somali Health Board (SHB)

SHB is a grassroots organization formed by Somali health professionals and volunteers working to reduce and eliminate health disparities for the Somali population of King County, WA through research, systemic change and community empowerment. They are building on their recent success in creating a comic book in two languages for members of the Somali community to learn about COVID-19 and spark conversation about individuals’ concerns and emotions around the pandemic’s impacts. Over this grant period, SHB surveyed youth and elders in their community about current sentiments regarding COVID-19 and preventative health measures. This information was then used to develop updated internal messaging and external message guidance for health entities engaging with these audiences in particular and the Somali community of King County as a whole.

Vital CxNs

Vital CxNs tackles the structural inequities impacting the health of Bostonians by catalyzing cross-sector collaborations to improve the city’s community health ecosystem. Over the course of this grant period, Vital CxNs advanced the accessibility of their innovative, community-led model of systems change that brings together public health departments, community leaders and the private sector to advance health equity. You can learn more about the community-led systems change model through the course on the Vital CxNs website here.