This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, pilot tests a novel community-embedded, technology-supported overdose response intervention that aligns medical care, public health, and social service systems to improve outcomes for persons following the experience of an overdose among people living in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, CA. The intervention proposes to dismantle the structural racism that channels marginalized communities into overburdened low-resource medical systems with limited capacity to address underlying health and social needs, and that excludes these communities from having a voice in how these systems operate.

Building off of the Aligning Delivery and Financing Systems to Prevent Adverse Child Experiences in St. Louis study, Washington University in St. Louis will study the impact of systemic racism on child mental healthcare and mental health equity. African-American families are disproportionately affected by barriers to preventative services leading to worsening socio-emotional, mental health, and physical health outcomes. This is especially true in St. Louis, Missouri, where a profound history of oppression, systemic racism, and mistrust have exacerbated mental health challenges.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, tests a holistic admissions approach in health sciences education at Salt Lake Community College and its impact on the BIPOC healthcare workforce. Higher education admissions have always been fraught with systematic racism, given the equity gaps existing within the standardized tests relied upon in the process. The holistic admissions model involves including representatives from the medical system in the admissions interviews and taking into account a students lived experiences with adversity.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, assesses effective strategies to eliminate disparities in access to COVID-19 vaccination by race and ethnicity by building on an existing nationwide initiative of the Aging and Disability Vaccination Collaborative (ADVC). The ADVC, administered by USAging with funding from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, supports community-based organizations (CBOs) to facilitate seasonal vaccinations by aligning social services, public health and health care.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, will explore opportunities to strengthen a systems alignment approach to the refugee resettlement process in Virginia. Structural barriers in housing, healthcare, employment, and education can impede the effectiveness of resettlement and integration efforts. The current consultation process to coordinate refugee arrival and resettlement inadequately addresses these barriers while also failing to meaningfully include representatives from the medical, social, public health, and community sectors.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, evaluates the feasibility of the Youth Wellness Hub as a hyper-local community governance model for integrating delivery and financing systems for youth behavioral health and wellness services. The Youth Wellness Hub combines three social policy tools that are separately promising or well-supported in the research literature: community governance; public health education campaigns; and service network coordination through fiscal blending.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, tests the feasibility of an integrated system of medical, social and public health programming designed to improve outcomes for youth experiencing homelessness in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The study organizes community-engaged consensus building sessions with stakeholders from medical, social and public health systems and with youth experiencing homelessness in order to co-create strategies for system alignment, including multi-sector data integration, shared clinical practice guidelines, and co-location of health and social services for youth experiencing homelessness.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, evaluates the effectiveness of California’s CalAIM Medicaid Waiver program in integrating social service and public health organizations into Medicaid coordinated systems of care for individuals with complex health and social needs. CalAIM is designed to dismantle forms of structural racism by investing nearly $2 Billion in helping Medicaid health plans and medical providers forge stronger alliances with local social service organizations and public health agencies in addressing the complex health and social needs of Medicaid beneficiaries, including paying for nonmedical services needed by these beneficiaries.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, evaluates the feasibility of a modified Church-based home visiting program that aims to align health and social services for households with young children and dismantle forms of structural racism faced by these households. The program to be modified and tested is delivered by Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton New Jersey, a predominantly Black congregation, with the goal of reducing adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and promoting positive childhood experiences within historically marginalized families and communities.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, evaluates the feasibility of a multi-sector “Functional Zero” approach to reducing homelessness among fathers in Atlanta, with a focus on Black fathers who are disproportionately represented among homeless populations. The study builds from an existing multi-sector coalition of leaders from medical, social and public health sectors who have formed Fathers Matter ATL to address the unmet health and social needs of homeless fathers, including forms of structural racism that limit the availability of housing options for homeless men with dependent children.

This study tests the feasibility of a multi-sector tribally-operated data system and dashboard for documenting health and social service needs and service referrals among youth members of the Coeur d-Alene tribe. The integrated data system is designed to achieve data sovereignty and improve timeliness and coordination in the delivery of health and social services for the tribal youth population, thereby dismantling forms of structural racism and inequity created by reliance on fragmented non-tribal service delivery and financing systems.

This study 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. The Nourishing Tomorrow (formerly Nourishing Beginnings) program uses integrated data, screening and referral systems combined with community health worker support to link people in need with healthy food delivery from a local food bank or with direct cash assistance for food purchases.

This study investigates the impact of a novel independent practice association (IPA) formed among community-based social service organizations (CBOs) to address social determinants of health among residents of upstate New York. The Healthy Alliance IPA allows diverse CBOs offering services for housing, transportation, food, and other social needs to join together in a shared-governance association that facilitates referrals, care coordination, and performance-based contracting with health plans and medical providers.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a multisector task-sharing collaborative in addressing the inter-related problems of mental health disorders, poverty, and housing instability among racial and ethnic minority communities residing in Harlem, New York. The collaborative trains the staff at low-income housing agencies and primary care practices to engage in mental health task-sharing, whereby staff deliver basic mental health support services such as screening, psychoeducation, peer support, and referral to mental health specialists.

This study tests an innovative model for preventing child maltreatment and adverse child experiences (ACEs) by aligning health and social services for vulnerable families in St. Louis. The Parents and Children Together - St. Louis (PACT-STL) initiative braids together services and funding streams from multiple sectors to assist families with children who are referred to child protective services (CPS) for first-time and low-severity problems.