County spotlights effort to address health disparities during National Public Health Week
The Hays County Local Health Department has created the Community Outreach Program in an effort to address health disparities in the local Hispanic community and school-aged children as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HCLHD highlights its Community Outreach Program, which was created through a combination of grants from the Texas Department of State Health Services, during National Public Health Week (April 4-10).
“During National Public Health Week, we will be promoting various public health topics to highlight the many ways in which we can improve the health and social determinants of our residents,” said Matthew Gonzales, a member of the health department’s outreach program team.
Hays County said the program members work to address numerous social determinants of health within various communities in the county through community outreach. The program team is working to establish HCLHD as a primary source of public health education, resources and information for organizations around the county.
“This program enables us to create partnerships that will empower local governmental agencies, organizations, and providers with the capability to decrease health disparities across Hays County,” HCLHD Director Tammy Crumley said.
Hays County said focal points of the community outreach program include infrastructure, community engagement, COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations, partnership directory and health disparities interventions design.
The county said the outreach program aims to identify the workforce to engage communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and build sustainable relationships in those communities. Additionally, HCLHD’s Community Outreach Program will identify and engage targeted communities to explore and document reasons why their respective communities were impacted by the coronavirus.
The program also looks to maximize COVID-19 and influenza vaccination rates in targeted communities, engage with community partners to address health disparities and design an intervention aimed at addressing a factor that made targeted communities vulnerable to the coronavirus.
HCLHD’s Community Outreach Program was provided with $400,000 and $330,000 from the DSHS’ COVID-19 Health Disparities Grant and the Public Health Workforce Expansion Grant, respectively. The county said funding runs through May 2023.
If any individual or organization would like to get involved with addressing healthcare disparities in Hays County, contact Program Manager Matthew Gonzales at 512-214-5918 or Matthew.Gonzales@co.hays.tx.us.
