2019 ANNUAL REPORT Table of Contents Chief Public Health Officer Message . 2 Who We Are . 3 Building a 21st Century Health Department . 4 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) Update—Year 4 . 6 Healthy Eating and Active Living . 7 Mental Health and Substance Use . 11 Violence . 14 Healthy, Safe, and Affordable Housing . 16 Our Work . 20 Collaborations and Leadership . 30 Financial Overview . 31 CHIP Partners . 32 Acknowledgments . 33 MESSAGE Chief Public Health Officer DEAR FRIENDS, Until government at all levels puts health The Cambridge Public Health Department equity and racial justice on the agenda, embarked on its second comprehensive health disparities will persist. Starting in community health assessment in 2019 to 2020, our department will be using a health identify the city’s most pressing social and equity and racial justice lens to better health concerns. understand and address the city’s new health priority areas, which will be the focus of the Residents’ stories and data collected Cambridge Community Health Improvement from a variety of sources revealed that Plan (2020–2025) . even in Cambridge—a city that has made substantial investments in education, social I am proud of the health department’s services, housing, and health care—some accomplishments in 2019. In addition to residents face greater barriers to achieving spearheading the forthcoming community good health than others. For instance, health assessment and community non-white residents who participated in health improvement plan, we successfully the department’s 2019 community health completed our first year as a nationally survey were twice as likely to rate their accredited health department, produced health as “fair” or “poor” than their white the final report of the City Manager’s Opioid neighbors (23% to 10%). Working Group, and were one of six local health departments across the country The drivers of health inequities in the selected to pilot a process for building and U.S. are well documented and include measuring community resilience. lack of access to quality education, jobs, housing, and health care. For people of Read on for more stories about Cambridge color, immigrants, people with disabilities, and its journey to better health. and the LGBTQ+ community, these issues are often compounded by racism and Claude A . Jacob discriminatory practices and policies. Chief Public Health Officer Cambridge Health Alliance City of Cambridge 2 Who We Are PUBLIC HEALTH IS ABOUT VISION PROTECTING THE HEALTH OF AN The Cambridge Public Health Department is a leading, innovative, and model agency ENTIRE POPULATION. For us, that that facilitates optimal health and well-being for all who live, learn, work, and play in means all people who live, learn, work, or Cambridge. spend time in Cambridge. Cambridge is a MISSION close-knit community of people of different The Cambridge Public Health Department improves the quality of life for all who live, races, ethnicities, cultures, languages, learn, work, and play in the city by preventing illness and injury; encouraging healthy faiths, incomes, and lifestyles. To increase behaviors; and ensuring safe and healthy environments. opportunities for all people to live healthier lives, the Cambridge Public Health VALUES Department provides services, analyzes and Collaboration shares information, implements policies, Innovation and enforces regulations in ways that benefit Professionalism and Excellence everyone. After all, improving quality of life Social Justice and Equity is what public health and Cambridge are all about . 3 Building a 21st Century Health Department As Cambridge changes and grows over time, ACCREDITATION AND THE health department and its partners have the Cambridge Public Health Department REACCREDITATION PROCESS already begun establishing a new five-year (CPHD) is building a 21st century health health plan for the city. department to better meet the growing In 2018, CPHD achieved national public health needs of the community. In accreditation through the Public Health To create a second CHIP, the department the past, a public health department’s role Accreditation Board (PHAB). CPHD undertook launched its second CHA, gathering was more narrow, focusing on prevention of this voluntary and rigorous process to information from the Cambridge community to disease in limited areas. Today, public health update, improve, and systematize the health identify what impacts the health of residents. is defined by more than just an absence of department’s standards and performance in The second community health assessment disease and includes a more expansive look fostering healthy communities in Cambridge. officially launched in April 2019 with a at the conditions that impact well-being and Every five years, CPHD will embark on survey; series of focus groups; community healthy living. The department must also reaccreditation, a process already launched, engagement activities; and a review of existing be ready for new and emerging diseases, to ensure that the health department social, economic, and health data collected conditions, or emergencies that may arise. continually monitors its performance and by local and state agencies, including Through the process of reaccreditation and ability to protect and promote the health of all Massachusetts Department of Public Health, building an academic health department, in Cambridge. US Census Bureau, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CPHD is transforming itself into a department An integral part of the accreditation process is equipped for the 21st century. developing a community health assessment The survey was both printed and accessible (CHA), which collects information about the online, and translated into a range of health of the population and the factors that languages reflecting the rich diversity of impact health, and identifies both assets Cambridge’s residents. Nearly 1,400 people WE WOULD LIKE TO and areas for improvement. In addition, this completed the survey. In collaboration with HEAR FROM YOU! process serves to engage the Cambridge city partners, the health department also ከእርስዎ መስማት እንፈልጋለን! community, partners, and organizations in conducted focus groups with a diversity of نود أن نسمع منك! creating a vision for a healthy Cambridge. Cambridge populations, including American- 我们希望收到您的消息！ Nou ta renmen tande w! The results of the CHA inform a community born Black residents, homeless youth, Nós gostaríamos de ouvir você! health improvement plan (CHIP), a five-year immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and Esperamos contar con su presencia! roadmap that lays out goals, objectives, and people with disabilities. Interns from the bit.ly/2019-Cambridge-Health-Survey strategies for advancing health priorities. As City of Cambridge Mayor’s Youth Summer A Healthy City for All CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT Cambridge’s first-ever CHIP wraps up, the Employment Program (MYSEP) also reached The 2019 Cambridge Health Survey was promoted in 4 multiple languages. Building a 21st Century Health Department out to residents in public spaces—such as health department is working with other city and comprehensive services. The department parks and the Cambridge Public Library— departments and organizations to create also sees this as an opportunity to become and asked residents for their feedback on topic-specific workgroups, recommend more involved in the community by building health issues such as access to healthy and members for these workgroups, and write partnerships and sharing information with affordable food. objectives, strategies, and metrics for the local institutions as well as teaching students upcoming CHIP. Meanwhile, the new second and community members about the role of the At a citywide summit in November 2019, the CHA is slated to be finalized and published in public health department and public health in department convened more than two dozen winter 2020. As for the second CHIP, the new general. representatives from the Cambridge Police plan will go live in July 2020. Department, Cambridge Fire Department, the In summer 2019, CPHD hosted seven interns, Department of Human Service Programs, and from organizations and institutions such ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS other city and community partners to learn as the City of Cambridge’s MYSEP, Tufts the results of the second CHA and help select CPHD also has a robust plan for developing University, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School the priority areas for the city’s second CHIP. into an academic health department. of Public Health. The interns worked on an Based on the data and input from subject Akin to a teaching hospital, an academic array of projects including creating substance matter experts, the three priority areas were health department allows for collaborative use prevention materials, constructing a selected: mental health, healthy eating and partnerships with academic institutions to framework to understand factors that promote active living, and community and social better train future public health professionals, mental well-being in early childhood, and resilience with cross-cutting themes of health and to work together to advance research reaching out to the Cambridge community equity and eliminating racism. Currently, the to gain resident’s feedback on prominent health issues for the CHA. In fall 2019, The department’s 2019 summer interns: Krishan Dhanda, Nicole Sabatino, Jayne Lindamood, Sitara Mahtani, CPHD embarked on its second Real World Jane Carpenter, Maya Clemente, and