MPH NEWSLETTER VOL. 19
WE’RE HERE TO HELP WITH YOUR COMMUNITY HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT & IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY / IMPROVEMENT PLAN (CHIP)
Hi there,
You’ve likely already heard about our Dental Health Week initiative for our Jamaican Blue Mountains Community Health Assessment & Improvement Project (happening October 21-25) - but we want to dedicate this edition of the newsletter to share more about the progress we’ve made in this exciting volunteer project!
Reach out to us anytime to learn more about Community Health Needs Assessments and CHIPs/Implementation Strategies! Set up a FREE discovery call with us here.
Stay healthy,
About the Jamaican Blue Mountains Project
Almost 20 years ago, the founder and CEO of Moxley Public Health, Stephanie Moxley, first traveled to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica to complete her internship for Boston University School of Public Health. The astonishing beauty of this area and, most of all, the warm and wonderful people that live in this community, never left Stephanie’s heart.
Years later, on a trip to the Blue Mountains to volunteer, Stephanie met Cheryl, another American there on a volunteer trip. Cheryl followed her heart’s calling and moved to this community in Jamaica to help with children’s programming, provide community meals and home medical visits to people in the area that are isolated, and so much more. Cheryl and Stephanie became close friends that regularly chatted on the phone. As Cheryl strived to finance her work and bring exposure to this often overlooked community, it occurred to Stephanie that this area could benefit from the very service that her company, Moxley Public Health, provided to their clients – a community health needs assessment and then a resulting improvement plan! That is when the Blue Mountains Community Health Assessment and Improvement Plan project was born.
Our work in this community started in early 2023 collecting information on over 35 social determinants of health/community conditions, and understanding what resources are available (and unavailable) to residents in Hagley Gap, Mount Charles, Mavis Bank, and neighboring communities in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Over the last year, the team collected (in-person) new data on these conditions and health outcomes using a community-wide survey and interviews with hundreds of residents of this area. Next, the data was analyzed and validated with the community.
We are so excited to announce that we’ve organized this knowledge into a comprehensive community health needs assessment report - available here.
There were six priority health needs identified in the community:
Access to healthcare
Chronic diseases
Education
Income/poverty & employment
Environmental conditions
Food insecurity
The next step in this community (just like in our other client communities!) is to make and implement plans to address these needs - starting with access to dental/oral healthcare!
Mavis Bank Health Centre has a dental health room that lacks funding for supplies and professionals (the dental room there has not been used in almost a decade). We heard about A LOT of needs there, but dental/oral health was definitely one of the top needs of this community and they are desperate to get these services in their area. To address this, we are partnering with localand international dental health professionals and volunteers to fund and run a dental care clinic each day from October 21-25, 2024 (in just a few weeks!). Moxley Public Health team members are traveling to this beautiful community to conduct this event and are funding the expenses. We would love to fundraise from the generous donors in our network to help with all the costs of this Dental Health Week event. In addition to all the logistics of hosting the dental team (lodging, transportation, meals, etc.), we would like to provide "goodie bags" (with dental supplies, personal hygiene supplies, toys for kids, school supplies, etc.) and a meal to community residents who attend the event.
How you can get involved…
The number one thing that we are hoping our subscribers can help us with is spreading the word!
We’ve created a sign-up genius form that outlines all of our planned costs for the week - please share this widely, the more people who see it and have the opportunity to contribute, the more impact we can have in this community! Not all items listed require a monetary donation - check it out and get involved!
Templates to share with your network!
We know that monetary or supply donations are not accessible to everyone - and we wanted to make sharing information about this fundraising initiative even easier… We’ve created templates for you to use! Share information about this project with your network using a graphic, or suggested text for an email, text message, or social media post.
You can also like, comment, or share any of our social media posts!
Make a donation!
If monetary donations are accessible to you, here is a brief overview of items that we need funds to cover (from generous individuals such as yourself!):
Lodging for 9 dental health professionals ($90/person per night)
Breakfast and dinner at the hotel and lunch at the clinic for dental health professionals ($25/person per day at the hotel and $10/person per day at the clinic)
Transportation to/from the clinic for dental professionals by locals ($25/day)
Snacks for dental health professionals at the clinic ($25/person per day)
Dental goodie bags for residents ($25/10 bags)
Toy and school supply goodie bags for youth residents ($30/6 bags)
A meal for community residents who attend the clinic, if fundraising allows!
Our sign-up genius outlines how much each of these things cost and who has donated toward each item - please make sure to fill out the sign-up genius if you make a charitable donation, so we can keep you up to date about the project and track our fundraising efforts.
The actual transfer of funds will happen on Venmo - please note that the sign-up genius is not required to make a donation, and all donated funds will go directly to support this community and project, including essential items and supplies, community engagement, and improvement efforts.
Please note that we are also accepting donations of supplies as we have the opportunity to bring additional checked baggage with all of our volunteers - dental, personal hygiene, school, and toys are all appreciated! Get in contact with us to coordinate shipping.
