Live Well Wake has established the Health Impact Collaborative (HIC) to address COVID-19 health-related disparities and advance health equity in communities experiencing disparate outcomes across identified social determinants of health. The HIC has determined 35 Wake County census tracts as priority areas given: the proportion of residents who identify as Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino; high social vulnerability, and low COVID-19 vaccination coverage.
HIC was formed in collaboration with United Way of the Greater Triangle, Southeastern Healthcare of North Carolina, and university partners at Shaw and St. Augustine’s. HIC facilitates implementation of strategies focused on data collection and reporting, community health and community innovation fund. These strategies and partnerships help to expand infrastructure support and mobilize partnerships in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Community Health Workers
Through the Community Health strategy, ten community health workers (CHW) have been on-boarded and trained to support Wake County Health and Human Service’s mobile vaccine team during community outreach events. CHWs possess expertise in working with the community and serve as trusted liaisons between the healthcare system and social services. To help coordinate services for clients, CHWs utilize NC Care360, the first statewide network platform that unites healthcare and human services organizations with a shared technology to enable a coordinated, community oriented, person-centered approach for delivering care. This platform enables CHWs to create and manage referrals connecting Wake County residents to resources responsive to their identified social determinants of health needs.
Community Innovation Fund
Through the Community Innovation Fund (CIF) strategy, Live Well Wake has awarded $100,000 to 5 community-based organizations (CBOs) working to address priority areas identified through the 2022 Wake County Community Health Needs Assessment. The HIC provides administrative support to the awarded CBOs to help ensure sustainability to continue the critical community work these organizations provide.
The 5 community-based organizations (CBOs):
CASA
A nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing in Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and other surrounding communities. They accomplish this by offering family housing, veterans’ housing, workforce housing solutions, and disability housing programs and solutions.
Stand up Speak Out
An organization that provides direct care and outreach advocacy services for families, child survivors, and witnesses of gender-based violence by providing holistic therapeutic services through Integrative Art Intervention.
Southeastern Wake Adult Day Center
Offers services that support seniors and disabled adults with vital activities of daily living, health monitoring, and social interaction – as well as empowering caregivers to take much-needed time for themselves when their loved one can no longer be left alone.
Families Together
Through direct support and advocacy, we assist families with children as they transition from homelessness to sustainable housing and stable homes. Keeping families together during this traumatic time is critical for their success as well as the community’s.
Oak City Cares
A public-private partnership that exists to support the self-determination of our neighbors’ experiencing homelessness through trusting relationships and connections to coordinated services that increase their ability to be safely and stably housed.
Learning and Evaluation
In partnership with St. Augustine’s University, Shaw University and Transformative Research and Evaluation, we evaluate the Community Health and Community Innovation Fund strategies to capture lessons learned, best practices, and our overall impact across Wake County communities most impacted by COVID-19. Through our mixed methods approach, including the use of surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews, network mapping, and developmental evaluation of the Learning Communities, the data we collect can inform our decision-making throughout the CDC OT21-2103 Initiative and beyond.