The purpose of this funded project, A Strategic Approach to Advancing Health Equity for Priority Populations with or at Risk for Diabetes—Subject Matter Expertise, Training, and Technical Assistance (CDC-RFA-DP-23-0021) is to support the goals of the companion funding opportunity, A Strategic Approach to Advancing Health Equity for Priority Populations with or at Risk for Diabetes (CDC-RFA-DP23-0020). Over the next five years, the subject matter expertise, training, and technical assistance provided by the Emory Centers for Public Health Training and Technical Assistance (Emory Centers) and Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists (ADCES) team will strengthen and build new capacities of the DP-23-0020 recipients to successfully achieve the specific outcomes of their projects and shared measures of collective impact across projects to decrease the risk for type 2 diabetes among adults with prediabetes and improve self-care practices, quality of care, and early detection of complications among priority populations with diabetes. Our specific aim is to increase capacity among DP23-0020 recipients to improve health equity, with three 5-year impact goals: 1) increasing access to and delivery of diabetes management; 2) increasing access to and delivery of type 2 diabetes prevention; and 3) increasing access to and delivery of risk reduction interventions for priority populations.
Together, Emory Centers and ADCES bring an incredibly rich diversity of nationwide systems, community partners, and SMEs that will be joining our network. Our organizations are highly respected, recognized, and trusted by our funders, peers, and communities we serve. Collectively, we are committed to ensuring the quality of nationwide diabetes programs and their delivery in all priority populations and providing the capacity building for recipients to increase access, uptake, and impactful implementation through local adaptation and flexibility.
Our organizational model to accomplish the aims of this work is to create the Diabetes MATCH Initiative which stands for Mobilizing Access Through Capacity Building and Health Equity. It emphasizes our experience with a collective impact approach that integrates the strength of Emory-ADCES working together with other SME community partners and systems in all aspects of the work. This will be led by Emory Centers’ Executive Director, Dr. Linelle Blais, who will serve as the Executive Director for the MATCH Initiative and oversee the management of the project and advise on overarching strategic approaches. Dr. Lillian Madrigal, Director of Implementation Science and Practice at Emory Centers, will serve as the Emory Director along with Paulina Duker, MPH, RN, CDCES, ADCES’ Vice President of Practice & Learning as the ADCES Director.
There will be six core teams with leads representing both Emory and ADCES; three teams are aligned to the three strategy areas (SME Network, Training & TA, Guidance Documents & Resources), and three teams are aligned to cross strategy cores (Health Equity for Priority Populations, Program Evaluation & Health Equity Studies, and Communications & Design). Cores will be led by experts in diabetes, health equity, training, and TA (described in the position descriptions). Lastly, the MATCH Initiative will also include the MATCH Initiative Advisory Group made up of select representatives from the DP23-0020 recipients and partners from our SME Network.