How Three Funders Are Linking Up Public Health and Community Leaders to Tackle Inequities

In 15 communities across the country, teams of public health and community leaders will be deployed to tackle daunting public health issues like maternal and infant health, food insecurity and healthcare access. The teams, located in communities from Philadelphia to Seattle, are participants in the Public Health Regenerative Leadership Synergy (PHEARLESS) initiative, which aims to strengthen public health systems, address health inequities and boost health outcomes. 

PHEARLESS was launched today with an investment of more than $8.5 million from the Kresge, Robert Wood Johnson and de Beaumont foundations. As IP reported when the initiative was first announced last spring, it is co-designed and implemented by faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health and the Muma College of Business (MCOB). 

Each of the four-person teams includes two public health leaders and two leaders from local community-based organizations (see announcement for a complete list). The idea is “to bridge the gap between two separate areas of expertise that often work in parallel tracks but share the same end goal,” according to the announcement. The teams will collaborate separately and as a cohort as they participate in four learning modules and develop a capstone project; each will then receive a $100,000 grant to support their proposed projects. 

PHEARLESS was conceived in part to help foster deeper connections and better communication between public health departments and the communities where they work. As the pandemic revealed, the weakness of such connections in many communities helped fuel distrust and even hostility when health departments attempted to provide information about COVID-19, safety protocols and vaccines. In some areas, health officials faced threats and even violence, and many have subsequently left the field.

Collaboration with community means developing connections with faith leaders, educators, business leaders and others — and doing so before a crisis unfolds.

“Strong partnerships between government and community are necessary to achieve meaningful change and improve health outcomes,” said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, as the 15 PHEARLESS teams were announced. “Through the PHEARLESS program, we look forward to facilitating and strengthening such partnerships in communities across the country.” 

Monica Valdes Lupi, managing director of Kresge’s Health Program, put it simply: “Authentic community engagement can improve the public’s health for generations to come.”

Diverse teams, community leadership

Fortifying the U.S. public health system by strengthening both public health leaders and the communities they serve is a goal that Kresge, de Beaumont, and RWJF share. The three funders have worked together before, as Castrucci told IP last when the initiative was first unveiled: “This was a great opportunity to get the band back together and really commit ourselves to rethinking public health leadership.”

The PHEARLESS partners solicited applications from communities across the country, and Valdes Lupi said it wasn’t easy to winnow applicants down to just 15 teams.

“It was difficult to sort out which ones would be selected for this first cohort, because we received many solid applications and responses,” she said. “But we are thrilled by where we ultimately landed. The teams not only represent geographic diversity, but also diversity in the different shapes and sizes of the communities they serve.” 

The teams are also diverse in terms of the specific issues they intend to address, and Valdes Lupi said that PHEARLESS funders are leaving that up to the participating teams. “Communities know best what the most pressing issues are,” she said, reflecting a growing trend in philanthropy of program teams seeking to defer to community members and leaders in order to support the right solutions to local problems.

“While they might be focused on different health challenges — whether it’s maternal health or care coordination or housing, for example — I would say the common theme is the elevation of communities to drive the changes and to present the solutions that they know work in place,” she said. “Addressing racial justice and health equity were themes that were common across the 15 teams, as well.”

Team New Orleans

The New Orleans Health Department is leading one of the new PHEARLESS teams. Jahana Deadmon, chronic disease coordinator at the department, and her colleague Jasmond Tucker will be working with representatives of the March of Dimes and New Orleans-based Labor and Love, which provides prenatal, birth and postpartum support.

The New Orleans team will be working to minimize food insecurity, which affects 1 in 3 children there. Specifically, the team is hoping to eliminate some of the barriers that prevent families from accessing Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) benefits available to low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, and infants and children up to age five. In New Orleans, Deadmon said, many families that qualify for WIC don’t access the benefits because bureaucratic and practical issues make the program difficult to navigate. The team is also working to develop a produce prescription program, a public health strategy that allows healthcare providers to give low-income patients prescriptions for fresh fruit and vegetables. Produce prescription programs also typically offer educational information on nutrition, breastfeeding and other issues. 

“New Orleans is Deep South, which means deep fried,” Jahana Deadmon said. “And many of our neighborhoods are food deserts, so many people don’t have access to fresh, healthy food. That is one reason why our diet-related chronic diseases are so high: diabetes, hypertension, heart disease.”

Deadmon underscored the link between food insecurity and other poverty-related problems. “Addressing food insecurity is just so pivotal for the city, because it is a way to reduce chronic disease and health conditions affecting our aging population. It will also help reduce infant mortality, and we’ll have healthier babies. We also believe it will prevent many violent acts that are fed by economic insecurity.” 

PHEARLESS will give Deadmon and her team the opportunity to address some of New Orleans’ entrenched public heath issues; she is also looking forward to the leadership development aspect of the program. “As a young professional, I’m early in my career, and I’m always seeking professional development opportunities,” she said.

What’s next

Over the next year, the PHEARLESS teams will be working separately and as a cohort to develop and refine their projects. They will receive technical and capacity-building support, as well as access to mentors and coaches. The 15 teams comprise the first of three cohorts that will be developed during the three-year program.

“This inaugural cohort will wrap up a year from now, though we’ll continue to provide them with support,” Valdes Lupi said. “Next summer, we’ll be back, selecting the second cohort. At the end of three years, we’ll have 45 community collectives and over 100 — almost 200 — PHEARLESS leaders who will have participated in this initiative.”

Of Kresge and their funding partners, Valdez Lupi said, “I think our collective hope and wish for the PHEARLESS community is that they’re able to harness and accelerate all the assets and the resources that they already have in their communities to tackle these difficult, wicked challenges. We hope that having this investment of resources and the connections — not only with their teammates but with other community collectives — will help them in the journey that they’re all on to improve the health of their communities. We’re excited that we’re able to provide this time and space for them, and thrilled about the work that they’re going to do.”