Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19 in the City of Fresno, zip codes 93701, 93702, 93703, 93705, 93706, 93722, 93726 - The City of Fresno submits this application in response to Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health/Office of Minority Health Announcement Number: MP-CPI-21-006, Opportunity Title: Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19. This application intends to address the request for evidence-based health literacy strategies to enhance COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and/or other mitigation measures in urban communities. The focus will be on increasing testing, contact tracing, and vaccinations in racial and ethnic minority populations as well as other socially vulnerable populations. The City of Fresno is partnering with five Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and aligning with the County of Fresno Department of Public Health to address the ongoing health disparities in the community, and more specifically the health disparities amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The partner organizations already employ the Community Health Worker (CHW) model to provide support to the community and will leverage this project to target minority groups who are not participating in vaccination, contact tracing, or testing opportunities at the same rate as other groups. West Fresno Family Resource Center (WFFRC) and Centro La Familia Advocacy Services (CLFA) will act as lead organizations, providing support and oversite to the project. WFFRC is well-known and trusted in the African American community and CLFA is well-known and trusted in the Latinx community. Both organizations have existing collaborations and have provided culturally based community services over the last decade. Other partners include Jakara Movement, Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, and Reading and Beyond. Each of these organizations have been embedded in various minority communities ranging from Punjabi Sikh communities, Hmong communities, to Latinx and Arabic communities. The City of Fresno will enhance the existing impact of the CBOs by expanding the number of Community Health Workers who are providing linkages and support to families in the urban regions of Fresno. According to data collected by the Fresno County Department of Public Health, specific zip codes have lagged behind others in participating in vaccination for COVID-19. Community Health Workers are trusted community members, and they will utilize evidence-based curriculum to address social determinants of health while increasing overall health literacy regarding existing health concerns along with a focus on COIVD-19 facts to increase utilization of vaccines, contact tracing, and testing. The residents in these areas have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic has only exacerbated historical disparities in health care, extreme poverty, income inequality and educational shortfalls. This project will utilize the Minority Serving Institution, Central Valley Health Policy Institute for ongoing quality improvement and evaluation to show that the project has directly impacted these communities in a positive way, buffering the impact of the pandemic through improved health literacy.
