$1.4M NIH grant lets NC CEAL shift focus, keep supporting healthier communities

July 24, 2024

Original article from the UNC Center for Health Equity Research

Everyone deserves to live in a healthy community—a safe place with housing, jobs, ways to get around, healthy food, clean air and green spaces. Living in a healthy community makes healthier options and choices easier for everyone to access.

But many things can interfere with a community’s health, like not having grocery stores nearby or a pandemic disease like COVID-19.

We can do things to help communities face challenges, such as making decisions to expand Medicaid in North Carolina or focusing on addressing COVID-19.

Dr. Anissa Vines

Al Richmond

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research teams in 11 states to create Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities teams. One of those teams was in N.C.: NC CEAL, jointly led by Associate Professor of Epidemiology Anissa Irvin Vines, PhD, and Al Richmond, MSW.

For four years, NC CEAL has worked to support communities hit hardest by COVID-19.

With a new 4-year award from NIH totaling $1.4 million, the NC CEAL team is building on its work and taking on a new challenge: food insecurity, research capacity in communities, social isolation among seniors, and Black maternal health.

“The renewal of the NC CEAL project presents the opportunity to expand our work to issues that are of concern to our community partners,” said Richmond, director of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health.

He added, “I am grateful for the commitment of our community leaders who have remained strong in their resolve to create meaningful and lasting health equity in N.C. through working together.”

Expanding by building on strengths, partnerships

When NC CEAL started its work in 2020, it focused on building trust within communities, sharing COVID-19 information and getting COVID-19 resources out into the hardest-hit communities through its coalition of community organizations. This core work helped N.C. communities meet the challenges of COVID-19.

By 2023, NC CEAL was building on its partnerships to understand Long-COVID in N.C. Now working with around 70 community organizations in its Coalition, NC CEAL has awarded $50,000 to members to develop events, resources and support for communities facing Long-COVID.

NC CEAL partnerships have created various “interconnected” programs and materials. Some examples include:

• Coloring books to help young people understand COVID-19 symptoms.
• Plans for healthcare providers.
• Webinars and trainings for organization leaders.
• Training for community health workers and research.

The NC CEAL program manager, Angelique Jennings, said NC CEAL’s work has “branched far and wide.” She added that the main focus is helping these organizations “connect, branch and support” each other.

With the new funding from NIH, NC CEAL will continue building with communities and providing stability for the next four years.

“The ability to focus in on everything we’ve learned from our partnerships, our communities will mean that NC CEAL’s impact only grows,” said Jennings. “The team is super, super excited to be able to keep working with their partners.”

That impact will focus on one of the most important needs: healthy food.

Getting food where it’s needed most

This new focus builds on NC CEAL’s biggest strength: trusted partnerships with N.C. communities.

Their partners were clear when the NC CEAL asked where they should focus. “Food was the area that kept coming up for people,” Jennings said.

They wanted to prioritize healthy food for preventive care especially since many partners already had connections with food distributors and pantries. The goal is simple yet powerful: to create a healthy community for everyone “across all stages of life.”

Dr. Alice Ammerman

Naturally, NC CEAL reached out to Alice Ammerman, DrPH, Mildred Kaufman Distinguished Professor of nutrition at the Gillings School and director of the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Ammerman will serve as a major research partner in rural economic development and building food production capacity. She’ll help with designing a Food is Medicine intervention for individuals living with chronic disease in Anson County.

“Community partners ‘have spoken’ in terms of their interest in addressing food insecurity and chronic disease prevention,” Ammerman said. “Our Caraway Foundation partners in Anson County are well positioned to support the health of the people and the economy by sourcing food from local farmers to make healthy meals for distribution to those in need.”

Over the next four years, NC CEAL will work with The Caraway Foundation in Anson County to distribute Good Bowls.

Dr. Carmen Samuel-Hodge

Good Bowls are pre-packaged recipes created by Equiti Foods and adapted from the Med-South Lifestyle Program based on the Mediterranean diet with a southern twist. Med-South was developed by Associate Professor of Nutrition Carmen Samuel-Hodge, PhD, RD, in collaboration with Ammerman. The bowls are freezer-friendly, accessible and healthy food.

NC CEAL will focus on increasing the organizations’ ability in Anson to produce and distribute free meals. They’ll set up impact hubs to bring people together to create meal bowls from Equiti Foods.

NC CEAL will support The Caraway Foundation in developing and distributing food bowls. By working together, the foundation aims to ensure that everyone who needs healthy meals can access them.

They’ll also focus extra attention on those with chronic diseases to support a program developed by The Caraway Foundation called Village of Strength. This program provides resources and support to those living with, surviving from or caring for people with a chronic illness. They will work with young adults in the community to facilitate this project.

To sustainably build food bowl programs in more organizations and communities, NC CEAL will continue to partner with Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) to expand its Research Leadership Academy (RLA).

Across N.C., the project will train community leaders to use evidence-based interventions and adapt the Med-South Lifestyle Program developed by Samuel-Hodge at UNC-Chapel Hill for use in their community.

The NIH CEAL initiative is all about community-engaged research. NC CEAL is committed to working with the community to identify and use innovative approaches and methods in research. To accomplish this, Paul Kuttner, director of partnerships with Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, will lead the expansion of CCPH’s Research Leadership Academy (RLA) to train community leaders on the research enterprise, principles of community engagements, and best practices.

These parts of NC CEAL’s work will “promote the collective impact approach across the state” and hopefully provide a model for helping North Carolina communities get healthier.

The RLA gives community leaders tools and guidance for working with academic partners like UNC. Through the RLA, leaders will be prepared to “amplify their work, to improve their capacity and to replicate proven outcomes,” said Jennings.

“These parts of NC CEAL’s work will promote the collective impact approach across the state and help North Carolina communities become healthier,” Jennings added.

What’s next?

With expert help from Joseph Fox, EdD, MBA, PHR, the team will analyze the food landscape in Anson County to identify opportunities to build community and partner with families to improve access to healthy meals.

This is where NC CEAL excels. They’ve worked with these partners for years and built trust. They’ve worked with these partners to know where to focus. And now, they’ll work with these partners to help Anson County residents have more access to healthy meals.

“NC CEAL is here to help amplify the power that already exists,” said Jennings. “What’ll come is improved health for all because the NIH funding will ensure these programs can keep going.”

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.