Overall Evaluation and Evaluation Capacity Building
of Minnesota’s Eliminating Health Disparities Initiative
Client:
Minnesota
Department of Health Office of Multicultural and Minority
Health
2001–present
Contact: Barry Cohen
The Eliminating Health Disparities Initiative (EHDI) is a ten-million dollar, ten-year project funded by the Minnesota state legislature to reduce disparities in targeted health areas (breast and cervical cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, healthy youth development, immunizations, and infant mortality) for the communities of color and American Indian communities. That initiative, under the Health Department’s Office of Minority and Multi-Cultural Health is in its sixth year of providing funding to community and tribal grantees. Of the original 60 community grantees and ten tribes funded, 51 remain in the program. Community grantees vary widely, including grassroots groups, public/private collaborations, community centers, large social service organizations, health care clinics, and faith-based organizations. Most, but not all, are organizations whose staff members reflect the community they work with in terms of culture, race and language.
Since 2001, Rainbow has been evaluating the Initiative. Rainbow’s role in the initiative has been twofold—(1) to provide evaluation technical assistance and capacity building to funded tribal and community grantees; and (2) to work with the Minnesota Department of Health in implementing the overall initiative evaluation. The overall evaluation involves identifying and conducting case studies on model programs funded by the initiative.