URGENT: You could have an impact on how DHHS dollars are spent on LGBT Health

[emeraldize]

On September 27, the Department of Health and Human Services announced approximately $103 million in Community Transformation Grants (CTG) to states and communities, serving approximately 120 million Americans throughout the country. These projects are part of a comprehensive HHS initiative to address the health and well-being of our communities, and will be administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If your region is one of those listed that received a local Community Transformation Award, please consider acting on this alert from our friends at the Network for LGBT Health Equity.
Awardees will address the following priority areas:
1.   tobacco-free living;
2.   active living and healthy eating; and
3.   evidence-based quality clinical and other preventive services with a central focus on prevention and control of high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Please feel free to address how you feel that the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities should be involved in and served by these priorities, using or adapting the talking points below.
Thanks, and best wishes for the New Year!
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ACTION ALERT: How to Demand Partnership in Local Community Transformation Awards

by Scout, Ph.D.
Director, Network for LGBT Health Equity
At The Fenway Institute

Local Communty Transformation Award Grantees Have One Month To Modify Action Plans

Many of the new grantees are right now modifying their action plans! CDC has asked for the new plans to be submitted to them by end of January. This means right now is a perfect time to contact the people who got the award locally and urge this partnership. Clock is ticking!

Who to Contact and How

The entities below are the CTG grantees who have to submit modified action plans by end of January. We have contact information for each of them, or you can just google it and call the top person. Please email us at lgbthealthequity@gmail.com if you want the direct contact information.

Broward Regional Health Planning Council (Florida)       
City of Austin Health & Human Services Department (Texas)       
County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (California)       
Denver Health and Hospital Authority (Colorado)       
Douglas County Health Department (Nebraska)       
Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department (Minnesota)       
Illinois Department of Public Health       
Iowa Department of Public Health       
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (California)       
Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness (Kentucky)       
Maine Department of Health and Human Services/Maine CDC       
Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene       
Massachusetts Department of Public Health (to serve state minus large counties)       
Massachusetts Department of Public Health (to serve Middlesex County)       
Mid-America Regional Council Community Services Corporation (Missouri)       
Minnesota Department of Health       
Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services       
New Mexico Department of Health       
North Carolina Division of Public Health       
Oklahoma City-County Health Department (Oklahoma)       
Philadelphia Department of Public Health (Pennsylvania)       
Public Health Institute (to serve the state of California minus large counties)       
San Francisco Department of Public Health (California)       
Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians (Michigan)       
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control       
South Dakota Department of Health       
Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (Alaska)       
Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department (Washington)       
Texas Department of State Health Services       
The Fund for Public Health in New York (New York)       
University Health Services, University of Wisconsin-Madison (Wisconsin)       
University of Rochester Medical Center (New York)       
Vermont Department of Health       
Washington State Department of Health       
West Virginia Bureau for Public Health
What to Ask

CDC urges you to address health disparities with this award. Do you have LGBT communities identified as a disparity population this CTG award will target in your Action Plan?

CDC requires that you have a "Leadership Team" that includes reps from disparity popuations. Do you have LGBT people on your Leadership Team for the grant?

CDC requires 50% of these funds to be regranted locally. Are you planning on funding disparity community based organizations with these regranted monies? (versus just health departments)

Are you integrating a full range of disparity populations in the Action Plan, Leadership Team, and regranting plans?

If no to any of the above - Why not? We can help you fix this, provide data, people, groups, etc. What will it take to make this change?

Talking Points

LGBT people smoke at rates from 35% to almost 200% more than the local population

If we haven't collected local data on this disparity - why do you think the national LGBT disparity data don't apply to us?

Remember, even for the exercise/nutrition components of this award, if we change the main population, but don't integrate disparity populations into that work, this could build a new disparity

LGBT people, and all of the overlapping disparity populations have the ground forces, and policy change organizing skills you need to change local health policies.  If you're trying to change local policy without us, it's like leaving some of your best racehorses in the stable.

Successful Strategies

If LGBT people or other disparity groups are not being included -- shine a spotlight on this fact, get press, post a blog about it, share with your membership. If a policy gap is widely known, it's more likely to be fixed.

Identify what allies you might have above the grantees, like the Commissioner of the local health department, or allies in the Governors office, etc. Telling them about this gap can also help fix it.

Remember you're trying to partner with the local grantee, ask the hard questions, ask them loudly if need be, but offer solutions, you want to be the people who can fix a problem for them. You're trying to build a working relationship here.

When?

ASAP -- the groups above to turn in their new plans by end of January! It'll be much harder to get inclusion once those plans are turned in.

[weasel]

    GOOD luck to the gay folks in S.E. Missouri !

     The Health Dept. picks and chooses who they think will be

      LOW MANTENANCE   

       They worry more about thier   own jobs and WHO KNOWS

       WHAT ABOUT THEM !   

                                                Weasel