Dear Friends,
This year The Kraft Center celebrated an important milestone: 10 years of expanding access to high-quality healthcare for underserved populations. This has been a decade marked by achievement, innovation, partnerships, challenges, and growth for the Center, and 2022 was another landmark year for us as we expanded and diversified our programming.
This anniversary has provided us with an opportunity to reflect back on what made our first ten years so successful as we strive to continue doing our part to improve health outcomes in the communities we serve. We are very proud of the continued impact and growth of the Community Care in Reach® mobile addiction program that is now being implemented in four cities across the Commonwealth, our Community Care Van mobile team that has provided thousands of COVID-19 vaccines and tests to date and is diversifying its service portfolio, and our cancer care equity work that has supported Massachusetts community health centers in using innovative strategies to promote equity in cancer screening, treatment, and outcomes. In the coming year, we look forward to ensuring the long-term success and sustainability of our programs while piloting new initiatives to meet other community needs.
One thing we know to be to be true is that these successes would not have been possible without the incredible staff, funders, and collaborators we work with. We are grateful for your support, expertise, and commitment to community health. We are especially thankful for Mr. Robert K. Kraft and the Kraft family, whose generosity, vision, and leadership made the Center's founding possible and have continued to serve as a guiding light for our work. And while we have accomplished a lot in the past 10 years, we also know that vast inequities persist and dismantling structural racism remains an urgent need. As an organization, our north star is ensuring that people have access to essential services by removing barriers to care. As we enter our eleventh year, we re-commit ourselves to these efforts and enter the New Year with clarity and resolve.
Thank you again for your continued support of The Kraft Center. Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season. Looking forward to seeing you in the 2023!
Best wishes,
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Elsie Taveras, MD MPH
Executive Director, Kraft Center for Community Health
Chief Community Health & Health Equity Officer, Mass General Brigham
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Celebrating 10 Years of The Kraft Center |
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Summer 2022 marked 10 years since the launch of The Kraft Center. Since its inception, the Center has worked to increase access to high-quality health care for underserved populations through innovative programming and community health training. For the past decade, The Kraft Center has supported mobile addiction services, cancer care equity, COVID-19 pandemic response, community health leadership training, and more. On June 7th, we celebrated with our partners, without whom none of our work would be feasible. Below are pictures of the event, and a link to the Center's 10th anniversary brochure can be found HERE. |
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Record Gift from Kraft Family to Mass General Includes Further Endowing Kraft Center |
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In October, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) received a revolutionary gift of $50 million from Robert K. Kraft and The Kraft Family Foundation to address healthcare disparities caused by race, ethnicity, geography, and economic status. The gift is the largest in support of community health and health equity in the history of MGH and more than doubles the previous commitments of the Kraft family to ensuring the highest quality equitable health care is available in all communities of the Commonwealth.
The gift will also further endow the Kraft Center for Community Health, first established a decade ago thanks to funding from Mr. Robert K. Kraft, with its mission to catalyze innovative solutions to frontline community health problems and make them scalable to improve health outcomes for disadvantaged communities. The Center will continue to change the community health landscape with Mr. Kraft's latest gift.
“The Kraft family has a proud history of transformative philanthropy. This amazing gift will have a profound impact on improving community health, access, and equity, and we at The Kraft Center are honored to be a part of this incredible legacy.” – Dr. Elsie Taveras, Executive Director of The Kraft Center.
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Community Care in Reach® Mobile Addiction Services
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Photo credit: Brockton Neighborhood Health Program |
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The first Community Care in Reach® (CCiR) program launched in Boston in January 2018. Since then, it has expanded to 4 sites across Massachusetts including Brockton, Springfield, and Worcester. The program mobilizes addiction services, using a data-driven approach to reach high-risk populations. To date, the CCiR program has made 26,020 contacts with people with substance use disorder, 7,499 clinical encounters, and 2,167 buprenorphine prescriptions. A special thank-you to our partners Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, Boston Public Health Commission, Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, Tapestry, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the GE Foundation for making the work possible.
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On September 7th, UMass Memorial Medical Center launched their Community Care in Reach van to expand access to harm reduction services and clinical care to people living with addiction in Worcester. Made possible by a generous donation from The Robert K. Kraft Family, UMass's program is also supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, exemplifying the public/private/philanthropy partnership that has made this model successful across the Commonwealth. A short video above shows highlights from the ribbon cutting.
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The Kraft Center, through an award from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, provides technical assistance and evaluation for four mobile addiction service sites. The Center also continues its work with the Brandeis Heller School for Social Policy and Management to evaluate the state-funded mobile addiction programs with an emphasis on programmatic reach and sustainability. The team is led by Dr. Dominic Hodgkin and includes Drs. Constance Horgan, Cynthia Tschampl, Margot Davis, Mary Brolin, and Traci Green. |
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Mass General Brigham Community Care Van:
Kraft Center Team
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Bringing essential services directly to people with the greatest need epitomizes the mission of The Kraft Center. Our Kraft Center mobile health team, led by Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta, first launched the program in January 2021 to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, offering testing and later introducing vaccine clinics. Our Community Care Van is part of a 3-van fleet across the Mass General Brigham (MGB) system. Throughout 2022, these mobile teams have continued to provide COVID-19 vaccines and testing, as well as pilot other mobile services such as hypertension screening. Since its inception, the Kraft Center-led mobile team has administered 8,504 COVID-19 vaccines in Chelsea, Revere, Everett, Lynn, and Boston. |
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The mobile teams also launched a pilot hypertension program to address cardiometabolic disease. Since May, the Kraft Center team has seen 331 patients who received blood pressure screening. Throughout the year, 673 patients were screened for social determinants of health (SDOH) needs including transportation, food, housing, utilities, and more. Overall, 52% of patients screened positive for at least one social need, and the team provided referrals for necessary services. These mobile efforts are made possible through grants from the CVS Health Foundation, an independent and philanthropic affiliate of CVS Health that supports projects to promote wellness, health, and access to high-quality health care for everyone, and from Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics in Underserved Populations (RADx-UP), a nationwide initiative sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aimed at enhancing COVID-19 testing in marginalized communities. |
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In July, the team welcomed President and Chief Executive Officer of CVS Health, Karen S. Lynch and her team to a celebration in Chelsea, MA of the accomplishments of the Kraft Center-led MGB Community Care Van. The van staff and CVS Health team were joined by local partners and stakeholders who have helped guide the design of the intervention to best meet the needs of the communities we serve. In addition to CVS Health, below is a list of community partners who have helped to make this program possible. |
This work also yielded two publications:
Gupta PS., Mohareb AM, Valdes C, Price C, Jollife M, Regis C, Munshi N, Taborda E, Lautenschlager M, Fox A, Hanscom D, Kruse G, LaRocque R, Betancourt J, Taveras EM. (2022). Mobile Health Services for COVID-19: Counseling, Testing, and Vaccination for Medically Underserved Populations. American Journal of Public Health, 112(11), 1556-1559.
Gupta PS., Mohareb AM, Valdes C, Price C, Jollife M, Regis C, Munshi N, Taborda E, Lautenschlager M, Fox A, Hanscom D, Kruse G, LaRocque R, Betancourt J, Taveras EM. (2022). Expanding COVID-19 vaccine access to underserved populations through implementation of mobile vaccination units. Preventive Medicine, 163, 107226. |
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Over 430,000 Tested through RADx-UP Grant |
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- Across the six community health center partnerships, 430,207 individuals were tested for COVID-19 during the study period
- Participating health centers had a 29.5% larger increase in daily testing compared to control sites and were able to more closely match the level of testing need
- The Kraft Center Implementation Laboratory (I-Lab) team along with the Mass League of Community Health Centers coordinated and led implementation support for six RADx-UP health center partnerships including, Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, Caring Health Center, DotHouse Health, Family Health Center of Worcester, Lynn Community Health Center, and Massachusetts General Hospital community health centers.
- The RADx-UP team held 15 facilitation meetings and 3 quarterly meetings in 2022 to support collaboration and shared learning, focusing on varying topics home test ordering and distribution, integrating testing into routine care, and pivot plans for COVID-19 surges.
- The team also collected qualitative data from health centers to inform future pilot projects
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Supporting Addiction Services for Justice-Involved Populations |
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Through a generous gift from Jill and Michael Stansky, The Kraft Center continues its work with the MGH Substance Use Disorders Initiative (MGH SUDs) on a pilot project to provide care navigation to individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) between the Nashua Street Jail, the Boston-based Community Care in Reach (CCiR) mobile addiction van, and the MGH Bridge Clinic. To date, Recovery Coach Lovelee Harvey has made 167 contacts with people within the Nashua Street Jail system, totaling 123 individuals benefitting from these services. All program participants have been identified by Nashua Street Jail staff as candidates that would benefit from addiction services. Services provided at each appointment include peer support (49%), care coordination (34%), and follow-up (12%).
The program, and Lovelee in particular, has received positive feedback and referrals from family members, lawyers, probation officers, and medical providers. Program participation has resulted in positive participant outcomes including reduced sentences for participation, reduced bails for receiving treatment, or release with no bail in order to receive treatment.
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Kraft Center Teams Up with RIZE Massachusetts for 2nd Webinar on Harm Reduction & Housing |
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The Center also partnered with RIZE Massachusetts Foundation and the National Harm Reduction Coalition to h ost a webinar on April 7th entitled “The Keys to Low-Threshold Housing.” The presentation was the second in a series of webinars exploring the intersection of addiction and housing insecurity. Laura Guzman, JD, of The DOPE Project and Andrew Spiers, LSW, of Pathways to Housing, joined a discussion moderated by Emma Roberts of the National Harm Reduction Coalition discussing best practices focused on person-centered approaches that build trust and autonomy, with an emphasis on how best to support people who use drugs. Click the above link to see a video of the complete webinar.
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2022 was a very busy year for the Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity (ISCCCE), a collaboration between The Kraft Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers (Mass League) to reduce disparities in cancer care and screening through innovative strategies. The Implementation Laboratory (I-Lab), led by Director Gina Kruse, MD, MPH, exists within ISCCCE to support activities, operations, capacity building, and data management within community health centers across Massachusetts.
A total of 14 community health centers were actively involved in implementation pilots in 2022. One pilot program conducted at 4 health centers bundled colorectal cancer screening with screenings for social determinants of health and demonstrated increased rates of cancer screening across all sites. ISCCCE also provided implementation, clinical, and administrative support to three new pilot projects focused on lung cancer screening and smoking cessation, colorectal cancer screening, and tools to close breast and colorectal cancer screening gaps. All pilots can be found on the ISCCCE website.
The Kraft Center's I-Lab team remained the “hub” between the ISCCCE team members and the health center pilots and activities in partnership with the Mass League. The team also developed a system to provide current and future pilot sites with tools and resources including recommendations to engage stakeholders, identifying barriers, and conducting workflow analyses.
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Implementation Learning Community meeting 6-29-22 |
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The ISCCCE team also hosted three successful Implementation Learning Community virtual meetings with over 75 participants on topics covering workforce, health equity, and shared decision making. The team also facilitated the creation of other technical assistance tools including developing capacity building materials for health centers such as cancer screening and prevention one pagers, motivational interviewing tips and scripts, and a COVID-19 travel checklist in multiple languages. New in 2022, the ISCCCE team is delighted to now be offering continuing medical education (CME)/continuing education units (CEU) credit through The Harvard Catalyst Postgraduate Education program.
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Summer Intern: Cesar Guerra |
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Cesar Guerra served as The Kraft Center's summer intern through the Health Career Connection (HCC) program. Cesar is a recent graduate from Brandeis University with double majors in Public Health and Business and a minor in Social Justice and Social Policy. He lives in East Boston but was raised in Houston, Texas. He is passionate about eliminating health inequities through health management and entrepreneurship. Cesar spent the summer working on projects ranging from mobile COVID-19 response to addiction services. Cesar's internship was such a success, he was hired full-time to serve as the Kraft Center-led MGB Community Care Van's Mobile Operations Manager. Congrats, Cesar! |
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Updates from our Health Career Connection (HCC) Interns |
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Our first HCC intern in summer 2018, Kene Aniagboso, graduated from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) University in May 2022 with her Doctor of Pharmacy. She is currently completing her post graduate year one Pharmacy Practice residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. After her first year residency, she plans to pursue a second year residency and specialize in oncology to subsequently become an oncology pharmacy specialist. |
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Updates from Kraft Center Alumni |
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Former participants in The Kraft Fellowship and Practitioner Programs continue to leave their impressive mark on the field of Community Health. Below are highlights of their work, including notable publications, career moves, and other personal news. We encourage all Kraft Center alumni to send us updates by emailing cregis1@mgh.harvard.edu. |
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Recent Publications:
Marguerite Beiser, ANP-BC, AAHIVS
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Kimberly Gayle Montez, MD, MPH
Wichelt N, Torres K, de la Vega G, Linton JM, Montez K. Legal Relief for Children in Immigrant Families. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022;19(7):4373. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074373. PMID: 35410057
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