Next HEAT meeting is Oct. 20

The Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee (HEAT) will hold its next meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. in Conference Room A at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Dinner will be available for $5. Here are the highlights from the proposed agenda:

• We will get a report from the Unnatural Causes Workgroup about planning for events related to the local re-broadcast of Unnatural Causes in January.
• We will discuss next steps in our research and policy advocacy for reducing childhood obesity through changes in the food environment.
• We will continue discussions to assemble a Steering Committee for HEAT-BP, our community-based participatory research project on stress, racism, and high blood pressure among African Americans in Tallahassee.

There is flexibility in the agenda at this point, so please contact Lance Gravlee if you would like to suggest an item for the agenda.

We hope to see you there!

New NIH Funding for Community-Linked Infrastructure

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced a new funding opportunity to support the development of community-academic partnerships for health research. The goal of the program is to “support the development, expansion, or reconfiguration of infrastructures needed to facilitate collaboration between academic health centers and community-based organizations for health science research.” As part of this infrastructure, NIH has established the role of Community Research Associate (CRA), “who will be a community representative and serve as a primary liaison facilitating communication and collaboration between the academic health center and the local community. Applicants must identify at least one CRA.”

For more details, see the full announcement for Building Sustainable Community-Linked Infrastructure to Enable Health Science Research (RC4), RFA-OD-09-010. Letters of intent are due on November 12, with full applications due on December 11.

IOM Report on Local Action to Reduce Childhood Obesity

Reducing childhood obesity is a recognized public health priority in the U.S. as a whole and in Leon County in particular. Many HEAT partners are involved in work to address this problem, and we will soon learn whether our application to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will result in new funding for policy advocacy to improve the local food environment.

A recent report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will be useful in our efforts. The report outlines actions that local governments can take to curb childhood obesity. As the IOM explains:

The committee sought action steps that are within the jurisdiction of local governments; likely to directly affect children; based on the experience of local governments or sources that work with local governments; take place outside of the school day; and have the potential to promote healthy eating and adequate physical activity.

Visit the IOM website to download the full report.

Next HEAT meeting is Sept. 22

The Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee (HEAT) will hold its next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. in Conference Room A at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Here are the highlights from the proposed agenda:

• Hopefully we will be able to report good news from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about our application to the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities program for work on policy change to promote access to healthy foods in Leon County. Fingers crossed!
• We will get an update on community events we will help to organize during the re-broadcast of Unnatural Causes (http://unnaturalcauses.org/) on WFSU in January.
• We will discuss our project on stress, racism, and blood pressure. I will present preliminary results on experiences of racism among African Americans in Tallahassee, and we will discuss the ethical and political implications of collecting genetic data in the later community survey.

Please join us and add your voice to the conversation. Please contact us if you would like to reserve a dinner ($5) or if you have other items you’d like to add to the agenda.

Events, Featured