A Mission to Enhance Health Equity in our Communities

UVA Health is actively working to have a positive and lasting impact on the communities we serve and to continue to strengthen relationships within these communities to address the most pressing health needs. Since quality health care is part of the fabric of any healthy community, part of our mission at UVA Health is to deepen community engagement to foster healthy communities, and to transform healthcare and inspire hope for all Virginians. To that end, we are taking a long-term strategic approach to broaden our mission beyond teaching, research, and clinical work, to include health equity and community building.

You may have heard about the Social Determinants of Health, and how the zip code you were born into has a predictive effect on quality-of-life outcomes for every member of that community. This is because the environment where we live, learn, work, play and age has wide-ranging effects on our overall health. Environmental factors that impact health include the availability of safe housing, reliable transportation, education, nutritious food, as well as clean air and water. Moreover, the prevalence of racism, discrimination, and violence also have an adverse effect on a community’s overall health and well-being.

In 2016, the CDC created a new tool to assess local area deprivation by integrating the Social Determinants of Health with treatment and prevention solutions. The Area Deprivation Index (ADI) reflects an area’s level of socioeconomic deprivation and its associated health outcomes. By collecting this data, the ADI can be used to inform healthcare delivery approaches and healthcare policy, especially for the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. It is clear from the research that healthcare needs to be convenient and easily accessible to meet the needs of any community – it must be integrated into neighborhoods, and it must involve education, treatment, medication, and ongoing care.

To address the Social Determinants of Health, our aim is to continue to reach out to local communities to try to level the playing field to achieve health equity. To that end, we have analyzed and identified several neighborhoods in Charlottesville, VA, near UVA Health. One of our strategic goals is to enhance healthcare equity for these communities to improve long-term health outcomes. In Southwood, UVA Health caregivers have been working within the community for some time. Throughout the Covid pandemic, UVA Health has been offering on-site education, community testing and vaccinations in Southwood. We’ve built successful relationships by providing quality healthcare onsite. We plan to build on this momentum by continuing a monthly education component, and potentially adding a mobile clinic which would reside in the community.

In Fifeville, 6th Street and other areas, we are in the process of engaging and partnering with community members to learn more about the needs of the community. In addition to clinics, one idea is to use navigators who can assist residents in connecting to the vital medical resources they need. Community navigators make appointments, coordinate scheduling, and assist with overcoming language barriers. More importantly, these liaisons help to build trust between the community and the health care providers coming into their neighborhoods. We are planning to provide a nurse-led mobile clinic in Fifeville, staffed by UVA Health so that patients with mobility issues or individuals without reliable transportation can conveniently access high-quality healthcare. Additional staff will be onsite to assist with medical forms and to help families sign up for health insurance.

We have many other ambitious goals for UVA Health in the future, but we believe that it’s important that we start by improving lives of our neighbors and friends right here at home. To be successful, these endeavors will take a strategic focus, as well as a significant investment of time and resources. However, before any results can be realized, we must partner and build trust within communities so that they can continue to grow and thrive. As we say in our guiding principles and values statement , we put the patient at the center of everything we do, and we aspire to create a culture of excellence, engagement, and trust.

We’ve accomplished a great deal throughout these past few years, and we want to continue to grow so that we can better support and strengthen our local communities. It’s an honor and a privilege to serve patients and our communities alongside the most dedicated, inspiring, remarkable caregivers at UVA Health.?