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A look back at progress made in 2021

While 2021 was another challenging year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Interact for Health was still able to achieve much in our priority areas. We recently took a look back at what we accomplished during 2021.

COVID-19

• The Don’t Miss Your Shot and Get Out the Vax media campaigns generated more than 32.4 million digital impressions.
• Our efforts helped Greater Cincinnati reach a 59% vaccination rate as of March 14, 2022.
• Partners provided more than 7,900 COVID-19 vaccinations. Vaccination sites included mosques, county fairs, the justice center, substance use disorder treatment facilities, back to school events, YMCA facilities, the Urban League and many more.
• We partnered with bi3 and Mercy Health to conduct a series of focus groups—facilitated by Cohear—to better understand barriers and strategies to address COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy in Greater Cincinnati. Two reports were produced.

Reducing Tobacco Use

• The Quit Culture campaign, a community-driven movement that wants to change the culture around smoking in Greater Cincinnati’s Black communities, generated more than 5.6 million digital  impressions. We increased our spending with minority owned businesses working on the campaign by 78%, from 32.5% in 2020 to 58% in 2021.
• Norwood passed a tobacco retail license policy in September 2021, which enforces Ohio’s minimum legal sales age of 21 (“Tobacco 21”) by requiring local retailers to comply with youth protection laws. At the time of passage, 4,388 Norwood residents under the age of 21were protected by the policy, as will future generations.
• In Cincinnati, 98% of retailers that sell tobacco products complied with the city's tobacco retail license policy in 2021 by obtaining a retail license to sell tobacco products, a 24% increase from 2020.
• In partnership with Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation, we developed the Tobacco Retail License Policy Toolkit to provide resources and best practices to local efforts across Ohio working to adopt and implement local tobacco retailer licensing policies.

School-Based Health Centers

• Nearly 50,000 visits were provided to more than 30,000 patients at school-based health centers in the region.
• We secured a $290,473 donation of dental equipment for the Bracken County SBHC from Henry Schein, Inc.
• We supported 40 open SBHCs, including a new location in Norwood City Schools. Four additional centers were in the planning stage.

Addressing the Opioid Epidemic

• Greater Cincinnati experienced a 14% decline in the overdose death rate since 2017, compared with a 30% increase nationwide.
• More than 4,000 doses of naloxone were distributed by partners in Southwestern Ohio and Southeastern Indiana in an effort to respond to the increase in overdoses identified in 2020.
• Caracole implemented the second harm reduction supply dispensing machine in the country, which reached 293 clients in the first year. These machines make life-saving harm reduction supplies such as naloxone, fentanyl test strips and more available to clients beyond the office hours of a typical harm reduction program
• Quick response teams, which provide follow-up to individuals who overdose, received 736 client referrals and were able to connect 14% of those clients to treatment services.
• Twenty-six first aid boxes containing naloxone, Naloxboxes, were installed across the region in areas where people at high risk of overdose can readily access them. These boxes are typically placed next to AED machines to increase availability of naloxone and decrease stigma.
• More than 35 recovery housing beds were added and improvements were made to three existing houses in the region.

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