NACCHO’s Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (RIM) health team supports local health departments (LHDs) in strengthening partnerships with local RIM communities to empower innovative and sustainable approaches to prevention and mitigation of COVID-19.
This session provided an overview of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded initiative across 23 sites nationwide to rapidly implement innovative COVID-19 education, communications, testing, contact tracing, vaccination, and other prevention and mitigation strategies with RIM communities. These sites comprise of LHDs, and community-based organizations (CBOs) collaborate to address the various COVID-19 needs of their RIM communities. During the session, three sites, a LHD and CBOs presented on their strategies for reducing COVID-19 spread in their RIM communities through effective primary and secondary interventions, community and partnership building, and developing sustainable, best, and promising practices. Following the sites’ presentation, facilitated breakout groups utilized the tools and resources shared in the presentation to brainstorm strategies to increase partnership and engagement in the participants communities. All breakout groups reconvened through a collective discussion to share their identified approaches, followed by a Q&A to address questions regarding any tools, resources, best practices, or other information shared during the session.
This presentation highlighted the strength and resilience of RIM communities at disproportionate risk from the virus, as well as the benefits of partnership building between agencies across the public health continuum to collectively create safer communities for those most vulnerable to the adverse health outcomes of communicable diseases.
