Address: 509 E. Third St., Bloomington, IN 47401-3654 Project Director: Dr. Jack Turman Contact Phone Number: 317-278-3473 Email: IUAWARD@iu.edu Website: iu.edu Grant Program Funds Requested: $2,490,849 A multisector network in Indianapolis will address a key social determinant of infant health - housing, to reduce the city’s racial and income disparities in poor birth outcomes. This work is launching during an optimal policy window as data across the nation reveal the relationship between inequitable housing and poor birth outcomes, media attention in Indianapolis continues to profile our housing crisis and poor history of racial disparities in poor birth outcomes, and key government and policy officials are motivated to address these issues. The complex intersection of racial and income disparities in both poor birth outcomes and housing requires an interdisciplinary team approach, where community voices are essential. Our collaborative engages leaders from key sectors, including the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, the Grassroots MCH Initiative, the Indiana Department of Health’s MCH Division, The City of Indianapolis’s Office of Public Health and Safety (OPHS), CareSource, the Indiana Justice Project, the Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition, the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, and Wheeler Mission. This team brings a wealth of expertise and resources to the task of promoting housing equity to improve infant health. Using a collective impact framework to implement important elements of Indiana’s Title V action plan, the Commission on Improving the Status of Children’s action plan, and Indianapolis Community Plan to End Homelessness, our steering committee will launch two evidence-based strategies to make sustainable systems change in housing policies to reduce race- and income-based disparities in birth outcomes: Healthy Beginnings at Home (HBAH): Few interventions have address
ed housing stability as a strategy to improve infant health. HBAH is a notable exception. HBAH demonstrated success in reducing disparities in adverse birth outcomes in a recent, randomized control trial in Columbus, Ohio. We will replicate this model in Indianapolis by providing housing navigation services, tapering rental assistance, and housing stabilization case management over a period of 24 months to improve infant health and to provide essential outcome data that equips our steering committee to advocate for policy changes at city, state, and federal levels. Health-Justice Partnership: This approach builds on other successful Health-Justice Partnerships that demonstrated systems-level impact by identifying patterns in the social needs of vulnerable populations and leveraging legal expertise to change policies, laws, and regulations to improve their health and social outcomes. This partnership will bolster pregnant/postpartum women’s sense of “legal entitlement” to stable housing, through community legal education, strategic representation of pregnant and parenting clients to establish new precedents in housing-related cases, and produce scholarly legal publications to influence executive and judicial policymaking. Our collective impact framework allows for continuous monitoring, quick responsiveness to barriers, sustainability planning, and ongoing evaluation to document the impact of our intervention package on housing stability and reducing racial disparities in birth outcomes. We will actively disseminate key findings and insights to all sectors (community, special interest groups, academia, government, and media) engaged in policy change to achieve lasting, positive impact on the vital intersection of stable housing and infant health.