REACH New Haven: Leveraging Coalitions and Building Systems Change for Health Equity - CARE is uniquely positioned to lead the implementation of REACH in New Haven, Connecticut through policy, systems, and environmental change, leveraging its extensive history of grassroots organizing and coalition building to mobilize resources for greater citywide impact on health disparities. CARE and its partners are committed to building upon successes of implementing evidence-based, culturally-tailored interventions for nutrition, physical activity, and vaccination to address the urgent public health problem of health disparities affecting Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals and low-income communities in New Haven. CARE will focus its strategies (including Components A and B) on making healthier food choices easier, making physical activity safer and more accessible for all, making breastfeeding easier to start and sustain, and making adult vaccinations more accessible and in demand. Over the five-year grant period, CARE will expand its Supporting Wellness at Pantries Program, which includes collaborating with the regional food bank to effect policy change at the local- and state-levels to improve the healthy food procurement system for food pantries in New Haven. CARE will also expand a local produce prescription program in collaboration with Fair Haven Community Health Care. CARE will continue to support the Safe Routes for All Implementation Task Force to make decisions regarding the prioritization of projects as well as support the design process of individual projects, with strong community input. The focus of these projects will include connecting everyday destinations by increasing transit, bicycle, and pedestrian network connectivity and access. CARE will also bolster its continuity of care in breastfeeding efforts by increasing the total number of worksites participating in the “any time, any place” campaign and the breastfeeding friendly worksite designation program; equipping healthcare providers with culturally relevant trainin
g through the “Roots of Racial Inequities in Breastfeeding;” successfully advocating for additional hospital policy or practice changes; supporting a breastfeeding support group for Black families; strengthening the lactation workforce through the training of additional healthcare providers; and continuing to coalition-build through the New Haven Breastfeeding Task Force. CARE will promote vaccine uptake by harnessing the connections of our networks to identify and recruit additional influential messengers to train. Training content will be updated to reflect evolving needs, and we will collaborate with our partners in the vaccine taskforce to enhance outreach messages and strategies. Skilled vaccine outreach will be continuous during this period. All REACH activities throughout the grant period will be supported and guided by the REACH New Haven Coalition. The depth and diversity of CARE’s previous REACH work has established a strong foundation that, when combined with its organizational capacity, robust partnerships across New Haven and Connecticut, and the readiness of the REACH Coalition, will advance continued progress towards health equity in New Haven over the next five years.
