Heart Health Inequities To Be Addressed Via Grant In Cleveland

CLEVELAND — Cardiovascular health disparities will be better addressed in Cleveland thanks to a "transformative" $18.2 million federal grant awarded to Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals.

Case and University Hospitals run an initiative called Address Cardiometabolic Health Inequities by Early PreVEntion in the Great Lakes Region. They try to determine what is causing cardiovascular issues in the Black communities in Cleveland and Detroit and address those causes.

“For so long, health and structural inequities in Black communities have been ignored. ACHIEVE GreatER is a major step towards addressing these persistent health issues in the Black community,” said Cleveland Metropolitan Housing CEO Jeffrey K. Patterson.

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The initiative will now pay for community health workers, nurses and others to work with the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority. They will screen residents for health concerns, provide free services, and contribute to the resulting research.

Using the grant funds, the health care workers will be active for at least five years.

“This is the initial building block around which UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute plans to launch a whole range of programs that will address glaring inequities in health care in Northeast Ohio,” said Mehdi Shishehbor, professor at the School of Medicine, president of UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, and Angela and James Hambrick Master Clinician in Innovation.