Approximately 61 million adults living in the US have a disability, representing nearly 26% of the adult population. Disability alone may not be related to increased risk for contracting COVID-19. However, some people with disabilities may be at increased risk for contracting COVID-19 based on where they live, and/or difficulty complying with mitigation strategies. The presence of underlying medical conditions puts others at increased risk for severe illness. Vaccinating people with disabilities poses unique challenges including ensuring physical accessibility of vaccination sites. To address these challenges, successful vaccine programs for people with disabilities will best be achieved through collaboration with disability-led organizations who are subject matter experts and recognized leaders in their communities. The CDC Foundation received federal funding to build the capacity of community-based organizations, specifically Centers for Independent Living (CILs), in a minimum of 37 jurisdictions and provide tools, resources, and support to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for people with disabilities. The CDC Foundation partnered with Able South Carolina to identify and provide grants to CILs, as well as develop their capacities through training and webinars. The CDC Foundation also partnered with NACCHO to provide technical assistance to CILs on engaging with their local and state health departments as well as providing resources to health departments on improving access to vaccines for people with disabilities.

This project has resulted in the Partnership Guide for Centers for Independent Living and State and Local Health Departments, which is a resource to promote and guide collaborations between centers for independent living and state and local health departments to better support the health and wellbeing of people with disabilities.

View this guide en Español

This project Leveraging CILs to Increase Vaccines for People with Disabilities was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $7,220,000 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Medicolegal death investigations (MDIs), conducted by medical examiner and coroner offices, are crucial to understanding causes of deaths, monitoring evolving health challenges and ultimately saving lives. Funding and resources increase the ability for MDI offices to collaborate with internal and external data sharing partners to send and receive this integral information. 

To transform the MDI data landscape and reduce the resources needed by an MDI office to collaborate with data sharing partners, CDC is prioritizing data modernization. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) is a standard created for healthcare data exchange. This standard can be used to achieve bi-directional exchange of data between MDI systems and data sharing partners. FHIR® improves data exchange while simultaneously reducing the burden of data entry.

During this initiative, selected MDI offices work collaboratively with other MDI offices, data sharing partners, vendors and FHIR® subject matter experts to use FHIR®-based data exchange to improve the efficiency of data transmission between MDI offices and data sharing partners.

Modernizing MDI data practices improves MDI office’s ability to investigate deaths, improves public health’s ability to monitor evolving health trends and creates data driven interventions to save lives without increasing burden on these offices. 

Our collaborating sites: 

• Alabama: Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office 
• Alaska: Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office  
• Georgia: DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office 
• Illinois: Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office 
• Indiana: Marion County Coroner's Office
• Michigan: Sparrow Office of Medical Examiner 
• Michigan: Wayne State University-Wayne County Office of the Medical Examiner
• Minnesota: Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office
• Mississippi: Mississippi Department of Public Safety
• Nevada: Clark County Office of The Coroner/Medical Examiner
• Ohio: Butler County Coroner's Office
• Pennsylvania: York County Coroner's Office
• South Carolina: Charleston County Coroner’s Office
• South Carolina: Greenville County Coroner's Office

This program is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,726,393 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.

Community organizations and community members, through their deep-rooted partnerships with state and local health departments, health care organizations and other organizations, come together to address the unique needs of each community.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored a need for renewed emphasis on building strong relationships between public health and communities to systematically reduce health inequities. Therefore, the CDC Foundation is leading a project to develop inclusive, community-centered recommendations that will enable public-private, multi-sector collaborations and systems-level responses to ongoing and emerging public health challenges.

With support from the Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation and in partnership with Human Impact Partners, the CDC Foundation is developing a set of recommendations and roadmap for building and strengthening partnerships between public health agencies and community-based organizations (CBOs).

Read the Recommendations

The final recommendations aim to support public health agencies in:

• Cultivating relationships with CBOs to better prepare and respond to future public health emergencies and to pursue more equitable solutions in routine practice.
• More effectively promote community health objectives.
• Sharing power with CBOs to address historical disenfranchisement in decision making.

Co-Designing Recommendations

To be relevant and actionable, our final recommendations and roadmap for strengthening public-private collaborations must reflect the varied experiences of public health department and CBO partnerships from across the U.S. To do so, we engaged representatives from a diverse group of organizations in a range of activities, including:

• Public health department and CBO 1:1 interviews.
• Consensus-building convenings to define a set of recommendations and an initial roadmap for how to implement recommendations
• Insight sessions across the U.S. with public health departments and CBOs to refine the recommendations and roadmap.

Our Partners

Human Impact Partners

National Partners:

• American Public Health Association
• Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
• Big Cities Health Coalition
• National Community Action Partnerships
• National Association of Community Health Workers
• National Association of County and City Health Officials
• National Network of Public Health Institutes
• Shared Cause
• Social Current
• Urban Indian Health Institute
• WE in the World