Program Areas for Funding
Environmental Public Health and Climate Change, Communicable Disease Prevention and/or Emergency Preparedness
Public health issues are changing in Oregon due to the risks of climate change, which are linked to the spread of communicable diseases and require a community-led approach to emergency preparedness and resilience.
OHA’s Environmental Public Health programs work to identify, assess, and report risks to human health from exposure to environmental and occupational hazards, and support Oregon communities with potential risks where they live, work, play, and learn to remain healthy and safe. This includes the Climate and Health Program, which works with partners to understand, plan for, and take actions to prevent the negative health effects of fire, drought, heat, and other hazards worsened by climate change.
OHA programs work to prevent the emergence and spread of communicable diseases. This is a cooperative effort involving health care providers, public health and members of the community. This includes protecting exposed individuals and communities through culturally and linguistically responsive prevention messages and community engagement and planning, and responding to public health emergencies involving communicable diseases.
OHA’s emergency preparedness program helps health care, public health, and communities to prepare for and respond to major emergencies that impact the health of people in Oregon. This includes ensuring that Oregon’s communities and hospitals are prepared for health and medical emergencies by supporting the development and testing of plans, providing training, managing volunteers, and encouraging collaboration.
Who can apply?
We welcome applications from organizations of all sizes and perspectives, especially those that are new and those that have not received funding from OHA before.
To apply and to be eligible for award of a Grant Agreement, an Applicant must meet the following requirements:
- Any 501(c)(3) organization registered with the Oregon Secretary of State and located in Oregon that provides culturally responsive services to communities in Oregon that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Individuals and organizations with 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsors are eligible to apply. Organizations must hold commercial general liability insurance covering bodily injury and property damage of not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence and annual aggregate limit not less than $2,000,000 at the time of Grant award, if awarded. This should not be a barrier to applying. The cost of insurance may be added to the proposed budget and purchased with grant funds after being awarded.
- Any partnership or coalition of organizations working together, where the fiscal agent is a 501(c)(3) organization.
- All grantees must abide by OHA’s nondiscrimination policy, and state and federal civil rights laws, unless otherwise exempted by federal or state law. Specifically, people participating in OHA-sponsored activities or programs may not be treated unfairly because of age, color, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.
Total funding available
Eligible activities
- Provide community expertise to local public health authorities as they conduct community health needs assessments and develop plans to advance health equity;
- Increase community understanding of health impacts of climate change and strategies for increasing climate resilience in ways that center the community’s culture, interests, language, and needs (see Climate and Health Program web page for examples). Please note that the availability of funding specific to developing curricula for climate adaptation education is dependent on legislative approval for funding, but does not affect funding for other forms of climate and health education.
- Learn about and document local climate and environmental risks and community strengths and resilience that serve as protective factors (see Climate and Health Program web page for examples).
- Identify community priorities for local public health plans that:
- Prepare for climate migration (for example, by developing affordable housing),
- Build community climate resilience (for example, by strengthening social networks),
- Reduce environmental hazards (for example, through home improvements),
- Prevent communicable diseases,
- Prioritize most-impacted populations,
- Foster partnerships with relevant local, state and Tribal agencies, and
- Address the root causes of health inequities.
- Carry out climate and health actions. These could include, but are not limited to, increasing access to smoke filtration devices, greenspace, community gardens or active transportation options, planting trees, creating community murals, or partnering with local public health authorities that are carrying out climate actions (see Climate and Health Program web page for more information and examples).
- Build social resilience by strengthening social bonds and networks among community members, bridges between community groups and/or linkage with decision-makers.
- Build policy development and advocacy skills of community members and promote community-led policy change that supports health. This includes public health policies or policies and plans in other sectors that affect social determinants of health (transportation, housing, energy, land use, natural resources, emergency management, etc.).
- Engage community for communicable disease responses (for example, Ebola, measles, child and adult vaccines).
- Engage community for emergency preparedness (for example, provide trainings on community readiness, risk communication, cultural and language access).
- Participate in emergency preparedness planning and exercises to elevate voices of communities most impacted by natural disasters.
- Participate on coalitions to support community-led health policy.
- Participate in/bring community expertise to government-led work groups, advisory groups, decision-making bodies and processes.
If you do not see activities that would most benefit your community, please propose other priority activities that would meet your community’s needs.
