Organization: Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 1 West Wilson Street, Madison WI 53703-3445
Serving: State of Wisconsin
Project location: Milwaukee County
Application for: Addressing Conditions to Improve Population Health (ACTion)
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ Chronic Disease Prevention Program (CDPP) will collaborate with community and health system partners to implement and evaluate the Milwaukee SDOH Accelerator Plan. This proposal centers on changing policy, systems and environments to improve health and well-being within Milwaukee County. The ACTion plan will engage populations of focus, including Medicaid beneficiaries who are impacted by historical and ongoing structural barriers and racism resulting in health inequities.
The Milwaukee County ACTion project intervention elevates community voice, grassroots community efforts, and community-centered solutions through multisector activities and system changes facilitated by Community Health Action Teams (CHATs) and health system partners, resulting in improved social connections and access to care needed to achieve optimal health for populations of focus.
Social Connectedness Domain
Multisector partnership engagement and mobilization are central to the CHATs, which will be composed of community member experts and multisector partner organizations (government, public health, business, education, healthcare, philanthropy, non-profit, faith). CHATs will be established in various local agencies (A-CHATs), youth-serving organizations (Y-CHATs), and the MCOPP coalition (MCOPP-CHAT) with the purpose of promoting health awareness and opportunities to enhance social connectedness within the neighborhood and citywide.
Community-Clinical Linkages (CCL) Domain
Health systems partners will complete an assessment that incorporates community-centered solutions and priorities from the SDOH Accelerator Plan related to customer service, language, provider issues, bias and racism, accessible care, electronic system and data sharing, and lack of health insurance. Following the assessment, health system improvement goals and training needs will inform their training and technical assistance, including a bi-annual training symposium with skill building topics such as cultural humility, active listening, anti-bias/Allyship, and cross-cultural communication, along with forums for ongoing interaction of CHATs and health system representatives to continue to identify CCL improvements.
The outcomes of the project include changes in group and organizational behavior and norms, adoption of new policies and practices, and changes in availability of health care and community services.