The South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health to Serve as Policy Lead

COLUMBIA, S.C. (Oct 22, 2024) — Via a statewide planning grant jointly funded by the BlueCross® BlueShield® of South Carolina Foundation1 and the Duke Endowment, multiple statewide and local organizations came together from 2021-2024 to discuss how to make these SDoH more accessible to all South Carolinians, with a special emphasis on mothers and children, adults with chronic disease and individuals with mental health and substance use disorders.

The Roadmap they developed is intended to accelerate statewide alignment around shared priorities related to SDoH. Additional information about the original Roadmap can be found here. Three cores — Data, Programmatic, and Administrative — made up of local and state level leaders representing diverse sectors created the Roadmap’s Phase 1 governance structure.

Through these discussions, several SDoH policy and infrastructure solutions were identified that members felt could improve the coordination and delivery of services. Another resulting decision was to establish a formal body and infrastructure with a common agenda that advances the vision, discussion, and recommendations into action (known as Phase 2).

The exciting news is that funding for Phase 2 has been secured from The Duke Endowment and the BlueCross® BlueShield® Foundation of South Carolina and work has already begun.
Lead organizations have been defined to help guide the work. They are:

• Center for Community Health Alignment/CCHA (Administrative Lead)
• South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health (Policy Lead)
• Furman University Institute for the Advancement of Community Health (Research and Information Lead)
• South Carolina Hospital Association Foundation (Programmatic Lead)

Phase 2 participants and stakeholders are committed to using the important groundwork from the first Phase to support South Carolinians who need to overcome roadblocks that keep them from being part of a thriving and healthy community and workforce. If you would like to get involved, know more, or have any questions visit the website or reach out to Rich Strater at [email protected].