Milwaukee launches plan to improve community health with a focus on racism

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- City health officials Thursday night launched a five-year plan to improve Milwaukeeans' health. The initiative will have an overarching theme of addressing "racism and health equity."

Milwaukee has health outcomes that lag the state's overall performance in categories like infant mortality, blood-lead levels in children, violence and cancer. Those numbers are even worse for people of color.

"We know in our city that the color of our skin affects how we access health care and jobs and education," Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis said. "And we really want to acknowledge that."

As far as what action the city will take to try closing those gaps, the Community Health Improvement Plan lists three main categories: Maternal and Child Health, Safe and Supportive Communities and Healthy Built Environment, which refers to housing, streets and food access.

According to the plan, the actions assigned the highest priority level are mobilizing community partnerships, developing new policies, enforcing current laws and improving research.

Ellie Freeman is a co-chair of the safe communities action team. She said her vision was to put an emphasis on reaching the city's youngest residents and setting them on a better path.

"Issues with reckless driving, kids' attendance at school," Freeman said. "We definitely know there's something going on there."

Freeman said one of her goals was to get more adults from different walks of life involved, but particularly those who had experience in dealing with disadvantages beyond their control.

"We've all been kids at one point in time in our life. Now that you're an adult, reflect back to what it is that you needed when you were a child, and you wish somebody would've helped you along the way," she said. "Whether it was a male, whether it was a safe space to go to have fun."

The health plan seeks to do something that has long eluded Milwaukee: get helpers in different areas aligned on how each would go about their work. From there, the health department hopes it'll be able to track outcomes and be flexible in a strategy isn't working or if another focus area is needed.

"We might set out to do three different things in one of our priority areas, but as we listen to the feedback from our residents and stakeholders, we might add a fourth [area of focus]," Totoraitis said.

Health officials said this would be a "community-driven" approach, where those guiding the plan listened to residents. Mayor Cavalier Johnson spoke at Thursday's launch event and endorsed the concept.

"No one person, no one organization, no government can take on the task of improving the health of our community alone," Johnson said.

If the community is leading the process, who is actually accountable when something isn't working?

"The goal is to be accountable to each other," Totoraitis said. "To say, 'Hey, you noticed this. We didn't even consider that,' and let's find a way to improve whatever metric we're talking about."

According to the website for 'MKE Elevate,' the name of the overall effort to improve health outcomes, the next meetings will be in February when each of the action teams for the three priority areas will meet. All three of those meetings are set to be held virtually during the day on weekdays.

A reporter asked both Freeman and Totoraitis to define what success would be under this plan. Freeman she would use overall community involvement as a measuring stick. She said her hope was to see those neighbors gradually take on larger roles over time.

"Success will look like the community coming together as a whole, not only to receive help, but to learn more about resources and how we can help one another," she said.

Totoraitis said longevity and durability were his measures. Currently, the plan is to evaluate results by 2028 and use them to reconfigure the approach for a new five-year cycle.

"Different agencies come and go, but if we have a comprehensive list and a lot of people are at the table, it can weather changes, right?" he said. "Changes in leadership, changes in agencies having funding."