U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
HHS Press OfficeWashington, D.C., June 23, 2020 (GLOBE
NEWSWIRE) -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 23, 2020
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of
Minority Health (OMH) announced the selection of the Morehouse
School of Medicine as the awardee for a new $40 million initiative
to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially
vulnerable communities. The Morehouse School of Medicine will enter
into a cooperative agreement with OMH to lead the initiative to
coordinate a strategic network of national, state, territorial,
tribal and local organizations to deliver COVID-19-related
information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
“The Trump Administration has made it a priority to support and
empower Americans who have been most impacted by COVID-19, including
minority, rural, and socially vulnerable communities,” said HHS
Secretary Alex Azar. “This new partnership between the Morehouse
School of Medicine and our Office of Minority Health will work with
trusted community organizations to bring information on COVID-19
testing, vaccinations, and other services to the Americans who need
it.”
The initiative – the National Infrastructure for Mitigating the
Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC)
– is a three-year project designed to work with community-based
organizations across the nation to deliver education and information
on resources to help fight the pandemic. The information network
will strengthen efforts to link communities to COVID-19 testing,
healthcare and social services and to best share and implement
effective response, recovery and resilience strategies.
“Underlying social determinants of health and disparate burdens of
chronic medical conditions are contributing to worse COVID-related
outcomes in minority and socially vulnerable communities, and this
partnership with Morehouse School of Medicine is essential to
improving our overall response,” said Assistant Secretary for Health
ADM Brett P. Giroir, M.D. “We’ve made important strides over the
past few months in fighting the pandemic, and with Morehouse School
of Medicine as our partner, we are ready to advance our efforts to
support our most affected communities.”
These social determinants of health are the conditions in which we
live, work, grow and age, that can include working conditions;
unemployment; underemployment; access to essential goods and
services such as water, sanitation and food; housing; and access to
quality healthcare. Such conditions may reflect inequities
experienced by disadvantaged communities, leading to poor health
status and adverse health outcomes and requiring community- and
systems-level responses.
“We know the power of partnerships to help us solve our most
pressing public health challenges,” said U.S. Surgeon General VADM
Jerome M. Adams, M.D., M.P.H. “This initiative has at its core the
community-based organizations who know their people best and who are
committed to working collaboratively to reduce health-inequities and
make them healthy and safe.”
OMH announced the initiative through a funding announcement on May
1. The NIMIC initiative is expected to begin in July and the first
award is for $14.6 million.
“Communities throughout the country have already done a lot of hard
work to adapt and respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic
and its impact on racial and ethnic minority, rural and vulnerable
populations,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health
RADM Felicia Collins, M.D. “OMH and the Morehouse School of Medicine
look forward to continue working with our communities to link them
to the information, resources, healthcare and services needed to
reduce the spread of COVID-19.”
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), a division
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides public
health and science advice to the Secretary, and oversees the
Department’s broad-ranging public health offices, whose missions
include minority health, HIV policy, women’s health, disease
prevention, human research protections and others. OASH also
includes the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public
Health Service Commissioned Corps.
The Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the
health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the
development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate
health disparities.
For more information about the Office of Minority Health visit:
www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov/.
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