Rhode Island’s Health Equity Zone (HEZ) Initiative

Description

Rhode Island's Health Equity Zones (HEZ) are specific geographic areas ranging in size from a few city blocks to an entire county, with populations of 5,000 residents or more, and with sub-populations experiencing different health outcomes. Rhode Island had been working on addressing these conditions for years and significantly increased efforts after launching the HEZ initiative.

HEZ offers a framework for establishing and growing collaborations among community, organizations and residents. These groups work together to improve their communities, guided by those most affected by existing inequities. Each HEZ involves the community throughout the entire process by:

• Assessing community needs and strengths,
• Identifying and prioritizing community needs, and
• Implementing and evaluating data-driven action plans to address barriers to health, prosperity, and well-being.

Rhode Island's commitment to support community-level change by addressing critical social, economic, and environmental factors is foundational to achieving improved health, wellness, and more equitable outcomes over time. Ongoing and follow-up actions are guided by how effective strategies prove to be in impacting socioeconomic and environmental factors affecting health in each HEZ.

Early Impact

Even though each HEZ sets its own priorities, they share common focus areas for state-level impact. Independent evaluation of RI's HEZ initiative recently demonstrated that by engaging vulnerable populations and providing better access to care, the HEZ initiative has reduced social vulnerability in communities engaged in the HEZ initiative by 21% and is leading to measurable improvements to community health. Additionally, this report showed increases in health care access and reduced out-of-pocket costs for care for residents within HEZ communities.

Each HEZ identifies and addresses key factors driving inequities. Examples of their impact include:

• Collaborating with Local Initiatives Support Corporation Rhode Island to build and open a new health center in Central Falls to address community identified barriers to healthcare.
• Supporting the adoption of Green and Complete Streets policies in Newport and Central Falls requiring the inclusion of greenspace and multimodal transportation in all future transit development projects.
• Addressing COVID-19 related inequities by distributing over 4 million masks, half a million meals, and 328,115 self-testing kits statewide.
• Deploying Community Health Workers to assist over 253,964 Rhode Islanders with quarantine support, unemployment, rent assistance, and other services.
• Purchasing a space to develop 38 units of permanent supportive housing in West Warwick for individuals and families experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.
• Using a pilot project to improve economic opportunity in the 02908 and 02909 ZIP codes through affordable housing development, wage growth, local business development, and early education.
• Partnering with Smart Growth America, the city of Newport, and residents to develop and adopt the Newport "North End Equitable Development Strategy." This plan supports inclusive growth, addressing existing inequities and provides a strategic framework for increasing access to affordable housing, fresh food, quality public space and parks, and daily physical activity.
• Improving healthcare access by bringing services and care directly to communities via a mobile health van and advocating for healthcare competent in LGBTQ matters.
• Increasing food security and nutrition through community gardens, farmers' markets, nutrition education programs, and food deliveries.
• Addressing mental health and opioid crises with Mental Health First Aid training, Safe Stations, and naloxone distribution.