Cigna Foundation Commits $2 Million to Nonprofit Partners Who Provide Community Health Navigation
April 26 2016 - 2:25PM
Business Wire
- Guiding the nation’s most vulnerable
through health care, social services systems
- Focusing on individuals at risk:
children, racial and ethnic minorities
- Working to ensure health equity in
communities nationwide
The Cigna Foundation today announced it will commit $2 million
in World of Difference grants over two years for nonprofit partners
providing Community Health Navigation. The grants will focus on
nonprofits that are guiding at-risk individuals – including
children, racial and ethnic minorities – through the complex health
care and social services systems.
By making Community Health Navigation a priority, the Cigna
Foundation is taking an expansive approach to connecting personal
health with community health. This approach starts with traditional
goals and metrics – such as decreasing the use of emergency rooms
for non-emergency services – and then identifying the need
for non-medical necessities such as food, safe housing and
transportation.
“The Cigna Foundation recognizes that the future health care
system must integrate with social services to address needs beyond
the traditional scope of medical care. Through our nonprofit
partners, we’re providing trusted sources to help individuals
access the full range of services they need to enjoy better
health,” said David Figliuzzi, Cigna Foundation executive director.
“The Foundation’s goal, over time, is to help build health
navigation models that communities everywhere can use to maximize
health equity for their people.”
The Cigna Foundation’s emphasis on Community Health Navigation
responds to The Commonwealth Fund’s 2015 Scorecard on State Health
System Performance, which looks at how low-income people and racial
and ethnic minorities fare in their ability to access care, the
quality of their care, and their likelihood of living a long and
healthy life. The scorecard notes equity gaps, defined as the
difference between how a state's vulnerable population does
compared to the U.S. average. For the equity gaps based on race or
ethnicity, more states worsened than improved in 2015.
The following nonprofits have received 2016 Cigna Foundation
World of Difference grants for providing Community Health
Navigation:
- La Clinica del Pueblo, Washington,
D.C., for its Tu Salud en tus Manos (Your Health in your Hands)
project. Administered by Community Health Workers, Tu Salud en tus
Manos will provide obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease
prevention programs for low-income Latinos in the Metro D.C. area.
Many of the Community Health Workers are Latinos who have faced the
same barriers to accessing health care and maintaining a healthy
lifestyle.
- Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's
Hospital of Chicago, for its Meeting the Healthcare Needs of
At-Risk Youth project, a collaborative approach between the
hospital and Chicago Youth Programs. Lurie will create a tool to
assess a child's mental health, family structure, and environmental
influences. The results will allow clinicians to provide
appropriate interventions as early as possible and track patients’
outcomes over time. Lurie also will develop a database of
community-based resources where patients and families can be
referred for supportive services, such as tutoring, mental health
care, housing support, food assistance and more; and will provide
medical and supportive services, including mental health
counseling, transportation, and an emergency fund, to help
eliminate barriers to care and provide immediate assistance in
times of crisis.
- Siloam Family Health Center, Nashville,
for its Community Health Outreach: An Innovative Program to Address
the Health Care Needs of Nashville’s Foreign-Born Poor project. The
goal of Siloam Family Health Center’s Community Health Outreach
initiative is to establish community health networks that promote
health and health access among refugee populations in Nashville.
Siloam’s program will develop community health leadership within
four faith congregations: Bhutanese, Burmese, Egyptian, and
Hispanic. Two individual Community Health Workers within each
community will be identified and trained to provide health
education services and assist people in accessing local health care
resources.
- Lifetrack Resources, St. Paul,
Minnesota, for its Families Together Community Health Worker Pilot
project. Families Together works with 100 families and 400 children
annually. Over a two-year period, Lifetrack will integrate a
Community Health Worker into their home visiting services.
- Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City,
for its TEEN HEED: An Adolescent Peer- Led Diabetes Prevention
Intervention Using Novel Health Technologies program. Mount Sinai
Hospital will develop and pilot test a peer-led diabetes prevention
intervention for at-risk ethnic minority youth in East Harlem
called Teen HEED. The goal of the program is maintenance or
decrease in body mass index, improved dietary, physical activity,
and weight control behaviors, and decrease in diabetes risk.
- Rush University Medical Center,
Chicago, for its Health and Aging Department Health Legacy Program
for Women in six churches in underserved neighborhoods of Chicago.
This is a 12-session, six-week curriculum designed to change health
behaviors among African-American women. Participants complete the
“Take Charge of Your Diabetes” education curriculum, also known as
the Stanford University Diabetes Self-Management Program.
- Emory University’s Rollins School of
Public Health, Atlanta, for its program to improve health for
Mexican Americans and Latinos in the Atlanta region. The program
includes development of outreach workers to help this metropolitan
community.
- Community Solutions of Hartford, for
its Northeast Hartford Community Partnership. The project aims to
improve neighborhood public health in tandem with boosting economic
security.
Other grants will be announced later this year and in 2017.
Similar work is underway in Memphis through a Cigna Foundation
multi-year grant to Methodist Bonheur Hospital Foundation, and
includes the support of local churches and a Community Health
Navigator in the Riverview Kansas neighborhood.
http://bit.ly/1Ri8C0Q.
For more information on the Cigna Foundation, go to
www.Cigna.com/Foundation.
About the Cigna Foundation
The Cigna Foundation, founded in 1962, is a private foundation
funded by contributions from Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) and its
subsidiaries. The Cigna Foundation supports organizations sharing
its commitment to enhancing the health of individuals and families,
and the well-being of their communities, with a special focus on
those communities where Cigna employees live and work.
About Cigna
Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company
dedicated to helping people improve their health, well-being and
sense of security. All products and services are provided
exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna
Corporation, including Connecticut General Life Insurance Company,
Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of
North America and Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York. Such
products and services include an integrated suite of health
services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy,
vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including
group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains
sales capability in 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more
than 90 million customer relationships throughout the world. To
learn more about Cigna®, including links to follow us on Facebook
or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com.
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Cigna FoundationGloria Barone,
215-761-4758Gloria.barone@cigna.com
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