Diabetes, heart disease and obesity are the top three health
challenges facing adult residents of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Community Hospital’s service area. But there’s another,
non-medical factor that also negatively impacts the health and
wellbeing of many who live in the South Los Angeles community and
can aggravate the severity of their chronic medical conditions –
food insecurity.
A number of Southern California hospitals are taking action to help solve America’s food waste problem by offering food recovery programs that assist the needy and impoverished.
As some of the most vulnerable members of the community, patients experiencing homelessness are at risk of poorer health outcomes and often lack access to basic support in recovering from illness or injury.
Cottage Health, a not-for-profit system serving Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties, in partnership with PATH Santa Barbara, is seeking to address basic needs of these fragile patients through
the Cottage Recuperative Care Program. Launched as a pilot program with four beds in fall 2018 and fully implemented with 10 beds at the beginning
Close to 40 HASC hospital and system members and public health
officials attended the inaugural launch of Communities Lifting
Communities (CLC) in partnership with the Public Health Institute
regional training, Alignment of Governance & Leadership in
Healthcare: Building Momentum for Transformation, this
month. The free half-day training was held twice — on June 7
at Kaiser Moreno Valley and June 11 at Mission Hospital Laguna
Beach.
HASC’s Communities Lifting Communities (CLC) initiative had a productive May, focusing on solutions to regional health disparities. On May 14, CLC — with HASC and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California — met with Los Angeles County health leaders to identify interventions aimed at birth-outcomes improvement.
On Jan. 30 CLC, hosted a complimentary webcast for 50
participants for hospitals, health systems, public health
departments and community based organizations to learn learn more
about food waste, edible food recovery, and the important role of
hospital and health care facilities.
