CDC Update for Rural Stakeholders and Communities on the COVID-19 Response

Webinar Presentation on Wednesday, April 8 at 4:00 pm ET.

Presenter: : Dr. Jay Butler, Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases, CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will share guidance with partners, public health practitioners, healthcare providers, and others working to protect the health of rural communities.  To submit questions in advance, please e-mail ruralhealth@cdc.gov with “Rural Health Update 4/8” in the subject line.

Registration required: https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_c7OYhtMORraMfh7Exp0dBg

CDC Webinar: Update for Rural Partners, Stakeholders, and Communities on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Response

The CDC will be conducting a webinar for an update on the COVID-19 response.  Registration is required.

Date: Monday, March 23, 2020

Time: 1:00 p.m. ET

Presenter: Dr. Jay Butler (Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases)

Dr. Butler will share guidance with partners, public health practitioners, healthcare providers, and others working to protect the health of rural communities.  He will describe what CDC knows at this point and what CDC is doing in response to this outbreak. We will also have time for questions and answers.

Please email eocevent337@cdc.gov to submit questions in advance and indicate that questions are for the 3/23 call.

This event will be recorded.  Questions not answered during it may be sent to ruralhealth@cdc.gov.

REGISTER HERE:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_etqFB-z0Tjyp-_WGI8jfzw

Teen Health in Springfield: Findings from the 2019 Springfield Youth Health Survey

Join the Public Health Institute of Western MA and partners Tuesday April 28, 2020 from 12:30-1:30pm at the Community Music School of Springfield (127 State Street) for a presentation and panel discussion about the 2019 Springfield Youth Health Survey.

The Youth Health Survey is administered biennially to eighth-grade students enrolled in Springfield Public Schools as part of the broader Springfield Youth Health Survey Initiative. The survey gathers information on many health topics including mental health, diet, physical activity, bullying, safety, substance use, and sexual activity. For more information or to RSVP, please email info@publichealthwm.org.

Ounce of Prevention Conference POSTPONED

In accordance with Governor Baker’s state of emergency declaration with regard to COVID-19, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is acting with an abundance of caution to protect the health of the Commonwealth. Based on the information available and in order to mitigate the spread of the virus, MA-DPH is following guidance to cancel large external events such as conferences, seminars and other discretionary gatherings. In light of this, the Annual Ounce of Prevention Conference originally scheduled for Tuesday, March 31 is being cancelled, and will be rescheduled for Monday, September 14, 2020. If you have already registered and paid, you will be refunded.

NIH Seeks Input for NIH-Wide Strategic Plan

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued a Request for Information seeking public input on a framework for the 2021-2025 NIH-wide Strategic Plan. The new plan will build on the previous NIH-wide Strategic Plan to guide NIH’s research efforts over the next five years. The framework articulates NIH’s priorities in the following key areas:

  • Biomedical and Behavioral Science Research
  • Scientific Research Capacity
  • Scientific Integrity, Public Accountability, and Social Responsibility in the Conduct of Science

In addition, the framework identifies several cross-cutting themes that span the scope of these priorities.

NIH invites you to review the framework in the Request for Information and to provide your feedback via the RFI submission site. The RFI will remain open through March 25. NIH is encouraging stakeholder organizations (e.g., patient advocacy groups, professional societies, etc.) to submit a single response reflective of the views of the organization/membership as a whole.

NIH will be hosting two webinars in March to describe the planning process and answer questions. Information about these webinars will be posted on the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan webpage as soon as information is available.

Save the Date: Initiative of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research Launch

Date: Thursday, May 14 and Friday, May 15

Workshops, food, fellowship, community, music, celebration

Led by co-directors Jamila Lyiscott and Keisha Green, the Initiative is dedicated to fostering community-school-university relationships, in the US and abroad, through a collaborative of youth, teachers, and researchers committed to racial equity and youth-centered research across all disciplines in the field of education.

Dar Williams: Author Talk and Panel Discussion

The City of Greenfield is pleased to invite you to join us at an upcoming author talk and panel discussion sponsored by the City of Greenfield, the Progress Partnership, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts and Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center.

Singer, songwriter, and author Dar Williams will discuss her book ‘What I Found in a Thousand Times’ at this free event Saturday, February 22nd  from  2-4  pm at Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center at 289 Main Street, Greenfield.

Free general admission tickets (two per person) may be ordered through the eventbrite link here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dar-williams-panel-what-i-found-in-a-thousand-towns-tickets-93175974849

What makes some towns thrive while others suffer? How can we build fellowship in an era of upheaval and conflict? Can something as simple as a sledding hill, an art fair or dog run help save a community?

Combining reading and performance, Dar will share what she’s learned about successful communities from her more than two decades seeing them first-hand as a touring artist. After the reading, Dar will join local arts and civic leaders on the stage at Hawks and Reed  to discuss “Positive Proximity,” her term for the social capital building that creates unique, thriving communities.

Panelists include:

  • Dar Williams, dubbed by the New Yorker as “one of America’s very best singer-songwriters,” has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America’s small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drunk in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle, but also seen them thrive in the face of postindustrial identity crises.
  • State Representative Natalie Blais (invited), House Committee for Arts and Culture
  • Jim Ayres, Community Foundation of Western Mass
  • Hannah Rechtschaffen, Member of Sustainable Greenfield Implementation Committee and lead on community forum “A Deliberate Downtown: Growing by Design”
  • Rachael Katz, chair, Crossroads Cultural District, local gallery owner and collaborator in the start up of The Hive – an industrial arts maker space in development in downtown Greenfield.

Moving Massachusetts Upstream (MassUP) $2M Investment Program

The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking partnerships between provider and community-based organizations looking to address upstream social, economic, and environmental barriers to health as part of the ‘Moving Massachusetts Upstream’ (MassUP) initiative. The MassUP initiative is a collaboration among Massachusetts state agencies. The vision of the partnership is better health, lower costs, and reduced health inequities across communities and populations in Massachusetts through effective collaboration among government, health care systems, and local organizations.

Proposals for the MassUP investment program must (1) describe a social determinant of health (SDOH) that is related to poor health and health inequity for individuals in a geographic community; and (2) propose a program through which the eligible applicant and their partners will undertake activities to address the SDOH in that community. The MassUP investment program is making $2 million available through this RFP, funding three to four awards of up to $650,000 each. The RFP and its attachments are available on the state’s procurement website, COMMBUYS, located here. Please check COMMBUYS regularly for RFP amendments, FAQs, and other information that the HPC may issue during the procurement period. Responses to the RFP must be submitted to the HPC by 3:00 PM on Friday, February 21, 2020.

Please submit all questions about the MassUP RFP to HPC-Innovation@mass.gov by 3:00 PM on February 7, 2020.

College of Nursing Spring 2020 Seminar Series: Dr. Em Rabelais

Speaker: Dr. Em Rabelais

Date: Tuesday, February 11, 12:00pm-1:00pm

Location: UMass Amherst Institute of Applied Life Sciences Conference Center (Life Sciences Laboratories Room S330)

The Office of Research in the College of Nursing is pleased to present the first talk in its 2020 Spring Seminar Series by Dr. Em Rabelais, an academic health ethicist, health humanities scholar and an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing.

Dr. Rabelais will discuss “Listening outside of whiteness: Make our bodies matter”. Health professions and research educators attained their position(alities) only through complying with whiteness; as such, how can they/we confront the concept of whiteness-in-us that promotes a specific transmission and prioritization of knowledge and knowledge’s sources?

Click here for further details.