UPMC Braddock Steps to a Healthy Community Initiative Receives HAP Achievement Award

In recognition of its outstanding progress in developing and implementing programs to eliminate health disparities, the UPMC Braddock Steps to a Healthy Community initiative has been honored with the 2007 AchievementAward by the Hospital and Healthcare Systems Association of Pennsylvania (HAP).

HAP selected Steps to a Healthy Community for its annual achievement award in the category of Community Outreach and Engagement. UPMC Braddock is one of only two hospitals in the state recognized in that category. The award was presented at the annual HAP Leadership Summit on Monday, May 14.

Mark Sevco, UPMC Braddock president, and Rodney Jones, vice president, operations, and facilitator of the Steps to a Healthy Community initiative, led a delegation of the initiative’s steering committee in accepting the HAP award, presented by Jan Fisher, chairman of HAP, and Carolyn Scanlon, president and CEO of HAP.

“This achievement award belongs to all of the dedicated, hard-working people who make up Steps to a Healthy Community,” said Mr. Jones. “It represents a real spirit of partnership that is the key to eliminating health disparities in our community. This award represents our continuing progress within Steps to a Healthy Community. We have our partnerships in place; we’re continuing to evolve our programs; we’ve received some grants and state funding in support of our vision; and now we’ve received this wonderful recognition of achievement from our health care peers. This is an exciting project and we’re only getting started. Steps to a Healthy Community will accomplish great things!”

Steps to a Healthy Community was developed in concert with the goals of the Healthy People 2010 national challenge to eliminate health disparities throughout the country. Healthy People 2010 presented the reality and challenge that all Americans do not enjoy the same full access to quality health care and wellness resources. Those disparities include racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups throughout the country, and defined “differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions.”

The national project identified the target areas of asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and maternal and child health as the immediate focus.

Based upon local statistics from the Allegheny County Health Department, UPMC Braddock discovered that communities and neighborhoods within the local service area demonstrated similar, and, in some cases, greater levels of health disparity. It was through this data and a local community health needs assessment that the Steps to a Healthy Community initiative was created over two years ago.