STRONGER PARTNERSHIP, STRONGER COMMUNITY
IPHI served as one of the project partners for “Stronger Partnership, Stronger Community: Using Health Literacy to Increase Resilience (Stronger2).” The Fairfax County Virginia Health Department-led initiative was set to improve health literacy among local African-American, Black, and Hispanic communities.
This is a sunset initiative (no longer active).
Stronger2 used a community-based model to bring trusted community voices to foster culturally competent health literacy. The program improved health outcomes by improving community member’s ability to find, understand, and use health information. The program also served the community in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.
The program recruited 90+ leaders from non-profits, the faith-based community, and historically Black fraternities and sororities to build the program and advanced the following objectives:
- Increased the number of COVID-19 vaccinated days [the number of people vaccinated multiplied by the number of days vaccinated by zip code] for Black and Latinx members by 20% over what would have been expected otherwise
- Improved COVID-19 health literacy by 40%
- Improved patient/provider communications by 30%
- Increase community resilience by 20%
- Increased social support by 20%
IPHI trained and certified implementation partners on a standardized health literacy curriculum model/approach. The sessions covered core elements of competency-based health literacy and topics relating to racial equity, cultural responsiveness, and trauma-informed care. Stronger2 trainings occured over several weeks and involved extensive study in health literacy, trauma-informed care, and program evaluation. Following the trainings, the groups built and implemented health literacy programs and shared the positive impacts in the community.
Some of the key health topics addressed COVID-19 vaccination, illness prevention, and health care decision-making. Program participants implemented, shared, and evaluated the results of their health literacy training and certification.
To learn more about Stronger Partnership, Stronger Community, please contact [email protected].