The PRCHN is a funded partner in the new Racial and Ethnic Approaches to
Community Health (REACH) grant awarded to the Health Improvement Partnership Cuyahoga (HIP-Cuyahoga) from the Centers for Disease Control. This five-year grant will continue efforts to improve health and prevent chronic diseases in low-resource and underserved neighborhoods in Greater Cleveland. The Center will be taking the lead role in expanding and sustaining the Healthy Food Retail and Shared Use initiatives, both of which began under the previous four-year REACH grant. See what the PRCHN REACH team accomplished during the previous grant in the sidebar.
The Healthy Food Retail initiative aims to strengthen its presence in Cleveland’s east side neighborhoods, finding more partners and more stores, including the possibility of expanding to some inner ring suburbs. The REACH team plans new nutrition strategies for residents’ lifespan by leveraging the branded healthy food retail Good Food Here (GFH) network and facilitating increased communication between partners developing and providing alternative food options in our targeted neighborhoods, implementing & reinforcing nutrition standards, improving access to affordable healthy food through implementation and support for small and large retail stores.
PRCHN and the REACH Grant 2015-2018, by the Numbers
Healthy Food Retail
- Pitched program to 55 stores; signed Memos of Understanding with 19
- Collected inventory data at four time points
- Conducted 18 store owner pre-interviews and 14 post-interviews
- Held 15 outreach events at corner stores in all REACH neighborhoods.
- Created partnership with Cleveland State University’s Community Health Worker program
- Provided health screenings to 135 residents at outreach events.
- Published Store Owner Guide
- Published implementation toolkit
Shared Use
- Pitched program to 46 sites; signed 24 Shared Use policies
- Held two Shared Use Policy workshops
- Published three toolkits: Shared Use Resource Guide, Promoting Shared Use Guide, and Shared Use Implementation Guide
- Developed five walking maps
Community Health Ambassadors
- Trained and graduated 43 residents as Community Health Ambassadors (CHA)
- Helped Ambassadors created pan-neighborhood resident group, Creating Greater Destinies
- Two residents now serve on HIP-Cuyahoga Steering Committee
- Resident voices and faces prioritized for HIP-Cuyahoga marketing campaigns (over traditional stock images)
- Hired two residents to work at the PRCHN
- Nine CHA’s became Chronic Disease Self-Management (CDSM) lay-leaders
- Ten CDSM workshops held in shared use or other community sites
The Shared Use initiative will expand its current work of improving access to physical activity in community spaces by working with existing underutilized commercial kitchens, in spaces such as churches and community centers, for resident entrepreneur’s to develop and prepare healthy products for sale. This will be done by building capacity and providing technical assistance within the shared use kitchens and training opportunities that focus on resident entrepreneurs’ needs to gain critical skills to establish stability for their business. This element of the project will further enhance the community-store relationship and increase local residents buy-in to shop at their local small retail stores.
HIP-Cuyahoga is a multi-sector, equity-grounded community consortium whose mission is to inspire, influence, and advance policy, environmental, and lifestyle changes that foster health and wellness for everyone, through four key approaches: perspective transformation, collective impact, community engagement, and health and equity in all policy. The PRCHN is the anchor organization for HIP-Cuyahoga’s Healthy Eating Active Living subcommittee.