Building Healthier Communities (BHC)
Overview
Building Healthier Communities: Collaborating across disciplines to develop funding and resources that promote healthy communities for all Rhode Islanders. BHC is funded through the RI Executive Office of Health and Human Services as part of the Healthcare Workforce Transformation Project.
Building Healthier Communities: A Grant-Funded Initiative of OSP is providing a full range of supports and activities to help faculty and staff develop proposals and seek new external funding opportunities for health-related projects and research. Funds for this initiative are provided through a grant from the RI Executive Office of Health and Human Services as part of RIC’s Medicaid Interagency Service Agreement (Medicaid-ISA) in support of the state’s Health System Transformation Project. Projects with an emphasis on social justice and focus on social determinants of health, such as income, housing, nutrition/food, transportation, childcare, and social support are encouraged and provide a wide range of opportunities across the RIC community.
The OSP team is working with RIC faculty, staff, and students to ensure RIC’s place in transforming the state’s healthcare system to improve access, delivery and outcomes for low-income Rhode Islanders. New external funding sources offer opportunities for all types of projects, from individual research to inter-disciplinary projects with community partners. Together, we’ll collaborate across disciplines to develop and pilot new research, programs and experiential learning opportunities, while also fostering learning innovation for our students and the broader community.
We invite faculty and staff to share your ideas about how your work might intersect with this new initiative. Email osp@ric.edu to have your name included on the Building Healthier Communities email list for updates and new activities and/or set up a time to share ideas on how we might work together.
Guiding Principles for the Building Healthier Communities initiative
- Bolstering student success through applied research and experiential learning
- Fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, inter-professional education and community partnerships
- Supporting RIC’s role in the state’s healthcare transformation efforts through new research, training and programs to address the social and environmental determinants of health in culturally-sensitive approaches
- Building capacity at RIC to expand research and program development that promotes institutional strategic priorities
