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MHHD Director's Corner
Implementation Day!
Imagine this scenario...
You are a non-governmental, community-based, or faith-based organization and have received funding through a request for proposal or funding opportunity announcement application.
Your organization's strategic plan, having been reviewed and approved, takes on new life with the new grant funding resources.
Your mission; goals; specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound (SMART)
objectives; strategies; activities; assessment methods; responsible parties; and budgeted costs are clear.
Your plan is data driven, related to strategic priorities, and based on a community health needs assessment. It clarifies the stakeholders, target population, location, intervention, and performance measures.
Your intervention adheres to best practices and is evidenced-based.
Your check list is complete, and you are ready to take action to reduce health disparities and advance health equity in your community.
Is this scenario a dream or is it reality for your organization? Is your implementation plan as rigorous as your strategic plan? Do you have metrics in place including your tracking and monitoring tools? Do you have contingency plans? Are you prepared to be flexible if data suggests adjustments are needed?
Implementation planning largely determines project success because without it, your strategic goals remain...a dream. I
mplementation is the necessary step that transforms your strategic plans into action to achieve your goals. (source)
The MHHD Team is ready to assist you in turning the dream into reality and helping you succeed at implementation planning. Like others in the field of implementation science, we believe that without an implementation strategy, it can be difficult to identify how you will achieve each of your stated goals and objectives.
MHHD Director, Noel Brathwaite, PhD, MSPH
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September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month 
Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from Saturday, Sept. 15 to Monday, Oct. 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on Sept. 15 and ending on Oct. 15 (
source).
The term Hispanic or Latino, refers to Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. The U.S. census estimates 57.5 million people or 18 percent of the American population are of Hispanic or Latino origin. This represents a significant increase from 2000, which registered the Hispanic population at 35.3 million or 13 percent of the total U.S. population (
source).
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Maryland Department of Health, Center for Cancer Prevention and Control Partner Feature
Cancer and Cancer Disparities 
Article by: Maria-Theresa C. Okafor, PhD, MCG
Program Manager, Surveillance and Evaluation Unit
Maryland Department of Health
Prevention and Health Promotion Administration
Center for Cancer Prevention and Control
What is cancer?
Cancer refers to a collection of related diseases. While there are over 100 different types of cancer, all cancer types involve the uncontrolled growth and spread of the body's cells. This excessive growth of cells may result in the formation of solid tissue masses, or tumors, which are malignant in nature. Malignant tumors can spread to or invade surrounding tissues in the body. Cancer cells can also break off from the original tumor site and travel to other parts of the body and start new tumors. However, not all cancers form malignant tumors: some cancers may form in the blood (i.e., leukemia) or grow in other cells of the body.
What causes cancer?
There are genes in our body that control how our cells function, including how they grow and divide. Cancer is caused by changes to these genes. Sometimes these changes can be inherited from our parents, and other times, they may occur over a person's life course, as a result of exposure to cancer-causing agents (also known as carcinogens), or other outside factors.
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Article Series: MHHD Priority Focus Areas
Beginning in June, we began a series of articles highlighting MHHD's Priority Focus Areas. Articles in this series include background on the focus areas, current data, and information detailing MHHD's activities to help eliminate health disparities in these areas.
In June we highlighted
infant mortality
, in July
prediabetes
was highlighted, and August we highlighted asthma
.
Stay tuned as we
begin our next series, highlighting the four social determinant of health focus areas: housing, food access, transportation, and educational attainment.
Social Determinant of Health - The Basics
Article by: Sosena Kebede, MD, MPH
Johns Hopkins Community Physicians @ Remington
Associate Faculty, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
In 1948 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity," Over half a century and several trillion dollars of healthcare expenditure later, both affluent and non-affluent nations remain woefully far from achieving optimal health for the majority of their populations. Unfortunately, the heaviest burden of the world's unmet health needs is disproportionately borne by people from poor nations and by minority populations in wealthy nations.
Based on decades of study and research, we know these health disparities seen among and between countries are a result of existing social realities, also known as the Social Determinants of Health (SDH). The WHO in 2010 stated:
"Social Determinants of Health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries"
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Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) Minority Outreach and Technical Assistance (MOTA)
Program Information
For FY19, MHHD, through a Request for Applications (RFA) process funded 18 community based organizations through the MOTA program. The purpose of MOTA is to improve the health outcomes of racial and ethnic minority communities through community engagement, partnerships, outreach, and technical assistance.
MOTA programs are required to focus on one of the following key areas: pregnancy/birth outcomes, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and asthma.
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