Thursday, April 25, 2024
4/25/2024
The City of Hartford?s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will implement the Hartford Healthy Family Initiative (HHFI), a place-based, family-focused approach in North Hartford (population: 47,775), with a particular focus on the federally designated North Hartford Promise Zone (NHPZ) neighborhoods of Northeast, Upper Albany, and Clay Arsenal (population: 23,930). The neighborhoods that comprise the Promise Zone are where Hartford?s most vulnerable residents reside. The NHPZ is overwhelmingly African American/West Indian (72%) followed by Latino (28%). The poverty rate in the NHPZ is 49% (vs. 33% in Hartford and 10% in CT). Its residents are overwhelmingly low-income with average household per capita income being only $12,099 annually as opposed to $16,286 for the City and $37,726 for the State. Within the NHPZ, no full?service grocery store exists. Only 38.3% of residents have a high school degree. As a result of these and other disparities, the 3.11 square miles which encompasses the NHPZ ranks highest among Hartford?s 17 neighborhoods in obesity, heart disease, infant and neonatal mortality, and sexually transmitted infections. To address the challenges the North Hartford/NHPZ face, the HHFI will work with existing government agencies, community-based organizations, and faith-based institutions to move beyond meeting the basic health and human needs in the first three years of the REACH cooperative agreement. In the final two years of the cooperative agreement, the HHFI will expand to include the South End of Hartford with a particular focus on the Frog Hollow neighborhood and one additional south end neighborhood to be determined at a later date.The North Hartford Triple Aim Collaborative (NHTAC) will serve as the HHFI Reach Coalition during the funding period. The NHTAC is comprised of the top level management of City organizations which have a special interest in addressing the disparities that exist in North Hartford/NHPZ a nd the rest of the City. To accomplish this, the HHFI will coordinate the NHTAC membership and others to improve and expand its current work in nutrition, community-clinical linkages, and tobacco with the goal of meeting resident?s basic needs and increasing health equity so that Hartford residents can experience improved health outcomes.Specifically, HHFI will implement continuity of care/community support for breastfeeding; work with food vendors, distributors, and producers to enhance healthier food procurement; support implementation of tobacco free policies within workplaces and multi-unit housing; support and leverage CDC?s national tobacco education campaigns; work with health care providers to include tobacco-free living screening and counseling; establish new or improved pedestrian, bicycle, or transit, transportation systems that are combined with new or improved land use or environmental design; promote the use of appropriate and locally available programs for individuals in the priority populations; expand the use of community health workers, patient navigators, and pharmacists to increase referrals of individuals in the priority populations to appropriate and locally available health and preventive care programs. Our intermediate goals will be: increased number of workplaces and multi-unit housing complexes that implement tobacco free policies; increased number of persons in workplaces and multi-unit housing complexes with tobacco free policies; increased number of places offering healthier foods; increased number of continuity of care/communities support actions implemented for breastfeeding; and increased use of appropriate and locally available health and community programs.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
