S4A Grantee Receives $3.8M NIH Grant
The research team at Case Western Reserve University and the Greater Cleveland Food Bank have received a $3.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to expand their Nourishing Beginnings, now Nourishing Tomorrow, program. Their work, originally funded in 2023 by Systems for Action, evaluates the effectiveness of an aligned service delivery and financing model designed to improve maternal and infant health by helping Medicaid-eligible persons receive access to healthy foods during pregnancy. If successful, the research may provide evidence for the cost of medically tailored groceries (MTGs) to be covered by Medicaid, Medicare, and other insurance programs.
“Pregnant individuals faced with food insecurity are twice as likely to deliver a premature baby,” PI Elaine Borawski said. “For over 30 years, Cuyahoga County has had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation, with prematurity being the largest contributing factor. Our goal with this study is to link MTGs to health outcomes, allowing us to provide recommendations for healthcare-community partnerships and integrate FIM approaches into patient care.”
See the team's S4A page here and the full press release here.
New S4A Grantees
The Systems for Action national program office is pleased to announce we awarded $1.3 million of new research funding to support five individual research projects under the recent 2024 Systems & Services Research to Address Systemic Racism Call for Proposals!
The following two three-year impact grants and three one-year developmental grants (pilot studies) will test innovative approaches of helping medical, social and public health systems work together to dismantle systemic racism and address the health and social needs of people experiencing health inequities:
- Aligning Health and Social Systems to Promote Vaccination Access for Populations Experiencing Systemic Barriers (Impact Award)
- Systems Alignment to Optimize Health Services for Youth Experiencing Homelessness (Impact Award)
- Research to Understand Systemic Racism as a Barrier and Engagement with Child Mental Health Services (Developmental Award)
- Systems Alignment For Effective Resettlement (SAFER): Engaging Refugee-led Organizations and Empowering Refugee Voices to Advance Equity in Refugee Resettlement (Developmental Award)
- Using a Holistic Admissions Approach in Health Sciences Education to Develop a Pipeline for Community Colleges to Strengthen the Healthcare Workforce (Developmental Award)
Please stay tuned for these teams to introduce their projects at upcoming Research-in-Progress webinars!