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Funded Projects

Health Equity for Criminal Justice-impacted Women Through Access To Housing

Awarded in 2021
Community Impact Grant
Updated Sep 7, 2023

At a Glance

The FREE Campaign seeks to improve health outcomes for formerly incarcerated women and their families by increasing access to safe, stable and supportive housing and resources to support successful recovery and reentry. The team will employ various approaches including transitional and reentry housing coordination in Milwaukee, Madison and the Chippewa Valley to achieve its goals. The FREE Campaign is an initiative within EXPO (Ex-incarcerated People Organizing), led by criminal justice-impacted women; EXPO is an affiliate of WISDOM, a faith-based community organization in Wisconsin. Lori DiPrete Brown, UW–Madison School of Human Ecology serves as the academic partner.

More Funded Projects

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COVID-19 Response Grant

Predicting Patient Outcomes in Wisconsin and Nationwide Using the University of Wisconsin’s COVID-19 EHR Cohort Database

Outcome Report
Awarded in 2022
Using the COVID EHR Cohort at the University of Wisconsin (CEC-UW), this project aimed to analyze the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minority groups in Wisconsin, compare disease outcomes between UW Health and other health systems and test associations between risk factors, treatments and vaccine status with disease outcomes. CEC-UW has been collecting electronic health record (EHR) data from all COVID-19 patients across 21 participating health systems and, as of September 2021, has compiled more than 250 EHR elements from 1.1 million COVID-19 patients. This data has the potential to help target high-risk individuals, improve treatment, guide variant management and enhance response to future disease outbreaks. The results revealed that Black and Hispanic communities, along with low-income groups, faced significantly higher infection rates and more severe COVID-19 outcomes. Comparison of outcomes between health systems showed that UW Health patients had better recovery rates and lower mortality due to more effective health strategies, including advanced treatment protocols and higher vaccination rates. Finally, the project found that early treatments and full vaccination greatly improved outcomes, while those with underlying conditions or lack of vaccine access faced worse outcomes.
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Maternal and Child Health

Development of a OB Nurse Navigator Program in a Rural Critical Access Hospital

Outcome Report
Awarded in 2022
St. Croix Regional Medical Center received a 2022 Maternal and Child Health Grant for the project Development of an OB Nurse Navigator Program in a Rural Critical Access Hospital (St. Croix and surrounding counties). The project was successful in creating a comprehensive program to address patients’ prenatal and postpartum needs and provided social supports and resources for underserved families in this six-county rural area.