Georgia Department of Public Health to Address COVID-19 Health Disparities Among Populations at High-Risk and Underserved, Including Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations and Rural Communities - The purpose of this project is to reduce the burden of COVID-19 among populations disproportionately affected within the state of Georgia including Black or African American, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, Non-U.S. born persons other minority populations, people living in rural areas, people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, people with substance use disorders, LGBTQ+ persons and religious minorities. In order to do so, Georgia DPH will work collaboratively with multi-sector community-based organizations and partners, the DPH COVID-19 Health Equity Council, local public health districts across the state to identify and address barriers and challenges to testing, contact tracing and other mitigation strategies experienced by high-risk and underserved populations who already experience a higher burden of health disparities. Aligning with existing GA DPH COVID-19 response areas like immunizations, EPI and Incident Command; these collaborations will work to identify community specific needs and strategies to address localized barriers including those resulting from social determinant of health factors within these communities that prevent access and ability for community members to participate in COVID-19 interventions and mitigation strategies. Partnership efforts will focus on identifying community needs, working with the community and trusted messengers to develop and disseminate culturally appropriate messaging and materials, conducting local focus groups and townhall presentations, and providing widespread and convenient access to needed resources. These efforts will also include collaborations with and improvements to current COVID-19 data collection and reporting for testing and contact tracing to increase the collection, analysis and reporting of sociodemographic, including race/ethnicity, measures of SES (e.g., income, occupation, education level, housing), and neighborhood of residence (e.g., zip code, census tract) and fully report against social determinants of health/social vulnerability to reduce barriers. Additionally, Georgia DPH will build the necessary public health infrastructure to implement the determined strategies by building and expanding its workforce at the state office as well as placements throughout the state, strengthening policies and programming to address health equities, and developing the statewide health equity plan. Overall, these targeted initiatives will help strengthen Georgia’s public health infrastructure and response capabilities to continue to address the current public health crisis while creating a sustainable system to prepare for future response needs.
