CPA News Releases, Advisories, and Editorials

CPA Receives $1.6 Million in W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Health Care Contract

Washington, DC — The Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has received a $1.6 million, five-year contract from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to work in 13 communities across the U.S. to improve health care access and quality for the underserved, the Kellogg Foundation announced yesterday.

The initiative, “Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved,” links 13 community health learning laboratory sites across the country, including one in the District of Columbia, in what is the largest philanthropic effort aimed at improving health care access and quality in the U.S. Front-line health care providers to those with few other health care options will serve as laboratories to educate policy makers on the importance of improving health care to the underserved at a time when the survival of safety-net health care providers is critical and universal health insurance unlikely.

“This Kellogg initiative has an enormous potential to amplify the experiences of successful community health care models and replicate them across the country,” said CPA President and CEO Linda Tarr-Whelan. “We’re very excited to be able to help move ideas to action through this.”

CPA will link the 13 Community Voices project sites and policy makers around the country to promote the exchange of best practices and collaboration among policymakers and community health workers, and among the 13 Community Voices sites.

“CPA will provide technical assistance on policy to all 13 learning laboratories and serve as an information clearinghouse for the Community Voices initiative,” said CPA Community Voices project director Nancy Epstein. “Our job is to spotlight innovative and successful community health care strategies.”

CPA’s Community Health Program aims to define and implement sustainable and comprehensive community-wide solutions to the health care crisis that incorporate the ideas of those not generally part of the health care policy debate.

The W.K. Kellogg “Community Voices” project, a $55 million initiative, is the single largest start-up initiative in the foundation’s 68-year history. Sites were chosen to serve some of the hardest-to-reach populations, including poor urban areas, immigrant health, Native American health care, rural care and the homeless.

The 22-year-old Center for Policy Alternatives is the nation’s leading non-profit, non-partisan public policy and leadership development center devoted to community-based solutions that strengthen families and communities.