Healthy Sacramento Coalition Fact Sheet (PDF). - Sierra Health ...

Healthy Sacramento Coalition
The Healthy Sacramento Coalition formed in May 2011 to apply for the federal Community
Transformation Grant. Led by Sierra Health Foundation, the coalition was awarded a $499,229
Community Transformation Grant for capacity building to support the development of the Healthy
Sacramento Coalition and its work to develop and implement a chronic disease prevention plan for
Sacramento County. The coalition officially launched in November 2011. Healthy Sacramento Coalition
meetings are held at Sierra Health Foundation and are open to stakeholders throughout the community.
Background on the Community Transformation Grants
In September 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $103 million in Community
Transformation Grants (CTG) to 61 states and local government agencies, tribes and territories, and state
and local nonprofit organizations throughout the country. Administered by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), and funded by the Prevention Fund of the Affordable Care Act, the
CDC’s goal for the CTG program is to support the planning and implementation of projects proven to
reduce chronic diseases, which, according to the CDC, are responsible for 75% of health care costs in the
United States. By promoting healthy lifestyles, particularly for those populations experiencing the
greatest burden of chronic disease, the CTG grants will help to improve health, reduce health disparities
and control health care spending.
The CTG program has two award types:
Capacity Building: Average annual award = $50,000 to $500,000
Implementation: Average annual award = $500,000 to $10,000,000
The CDC has outlined five strategic focus areas for the CTG program
1. Tobacco-free living
2. Active living and healthy eating
3. Evidence-based quality clinical and other preventive services, specifically prevention and control
of high blood pressure and high cholesterol
4. Social and emotional wellness
5. Healthy and safe physical environments
Consistent with the CTG focus, the Healthy Sacramento Coalition’s goal is to reduce tobacco use,
obesity, death and disability due to chronic disease, reduce health disparities, build a safe and healthy
physical environment, and improve the social and emotional well-being of Sacramento County residents.
Of these five focus areas, CTG recipients are required by the CDC to allocate 50% of funding to Focus
Areas 1-3, with focus areas 4 and 5 being optional. The CDC also requires all CTG recipients to ensure
there is coordination among proposed strategies in order to create complementary interventions and avoid
isolated, low-impact interventions.
In addition, the CDC has three project requirements:
1. Grant recipients must demonstrably show some impact on reductions in death and disability due
to tobacco use, the rate of obesity through nutrition and physical activity interventions, and death
and disability due to heart disease and stroke.

2. 50% or more of implementation funding must be allocated to community entities, or
governmental or non-governmental organizations.
3. Efforts must be coordinated with multiple sectors, such as transportation, planning, education,
health care delivery, agriculture and others.
The CDC has provided some guidance on project design.
First, efforts should focus on implementing policy, environmental, programmatic and infrastructure
changes aligned with strategic directions to achieve changes in weight, proper nutrition, physical activity,
tobacco use prevalence, emotional well-being, overall mental health and other outcomes. It defines these
areas of change in the following ways:
1. Policy – Educate the public and stakeholders about evidence- and practice-based policy
intervention to improve population health and foster healthy behaviors.
2. Environment – Create social and physical environments that support healthy living and ensure
that healthy choices are the easy choice.
3. Program – Increase access to prevention programs to support healthy choices and contribute to
wellness, ensuring integration of their use in a variety of community and clinical settings.
4. Infrastructure – Establish systems, procedures and protocols within communities, institutions
and networks that support healthy behaviors, including improving linkages between public health
and health care systems.
Second, efforts should choose from evidence- and practice-based intervention strategies. Third, CTG
recipients should include intensive strategies that target population sub-groups that would help to achieve
reductions in health disparities. Finally, recipients cannot use CTG funds to support clinical care, servicedelivery,
research or lobbying. CTG funding must be used for implementing policy, environmental,
programmatic and/or infrastructure changes only; there is no funding for services.
Learn more on the CDC web site at www.cdc.gov/communitytransformation.
Coalition Next Steps for 2012
▪ Build a Leadership Team
▪ Build the Healthy Sacramento Coalition
▪ Complete a Community Health Assessment
▪ Develop a Strategic Communications Plan
▪ Begin development of a Community Transformation Implementation Plan
Timeline
▪ Planning Year One: September 30, 2011 – September 29, 2012
▪ Planning Year Two: September 30, 2012 – September 29, 2013
▪ Apply for Year Three Implementation funding in Spring 2013
Learn More
Visit the Healthy Sacramento Coalition web page and sign up to receive coalition e-mail notices at
www.sierrahealth.org/healthysacramento. Please send inquiries to programs@sierrahealth.org.
www.sierrahealth.org/healthysacramento
Funding for this project is provided in whole by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)
Community Transformation Grant, 1U58DP003522, as part of the Prevention and Public Health Fund of the
Affordable Care Act. The views expressed in this project do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the CDC or
imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Learn about Community Transformation Grants at
http://www.cdc.gov/communitytransformation.