CHA Receives Vaccine Equity Grants
Three CHA care centers awarded grants to build community resilience
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a community health system serving Cambridge, Somerville and Boston’s metro-north communities, has been awarded the Massachusetts Community Health Workers for Resilient Communities Initiative grants from the Mass. Department of Public Health to build community health and resilience.
The goal is to improve community resilience in Malden, Everett and Revere and address COVID response and long term recovery. The funding invests in the Community Health Workers (CHW) model, embedding ethnic/community-based workers in CHA clinics and in the local Boards of Health of each partner community. This will be achieved through training and deployment of community health workers in primary care and in municipal settings to deepen COVID response efforts and address existing health disparities.
CHA received $1.2 million per year in grant funding, with $400,000 per community per year for three years. Funding in each community will be used to employ two community health workers at each Community CHA clinic site, as well as one CHW at each partner community’s local Board of Health.
The initiative will support and empower communities and health systems in equitable recovery from the pandemic, including via successful vaccination efforts, and equip these partners to handle future emergencies in ways that mitigates inequities.
"We are thrilled to partner with the Mass. Department of Public Health to continue ongoing efforts to improve community health and wellbeing by helping to address the immediate and long-term health equity needs in communities hit hardest by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," said Cambridge Health Alliance CEO Assaad Sayah, MD.