{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,12]],"date-time":"2026-06-12T05:59:48Z","timestamp":1781243988474,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,12]],"date-time":"2026-06-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1781222400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100021336","name":"Office of Minority Health","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100021336","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    In March 2021, the Biden administration announced the\n                    <jats:italic>Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19<\/jats:italic>\n                    initiative that encouraged local and state governments, as well as other public entities to apply for funding to improve COVID-19 prevention behaviors and vaccination among underserved populations in the United States. The initiative specifically called for projects to adopt an approach that included health literacy as described in Healthy People 2030 and the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (NCLAS). The City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health (CUNY SPH) and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC Health Department) worked together to identify the approach most suitable for improving COVID-19 prevention behaviors in communities in NYC that were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Given the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in COVID-19 information dissemination, personal protective equipment distribution, and filling social services gaps such as food distribution, the approach included augmenting community-based organizations' skills for doing this work primarily via improving their organizational health literacy and their NCLAS practices. This paper describes the implementation of the Community-based Initiative for Health Literacy and Action (CIHLA). From March 2022 to June 2024, CUNY SPH and NYC Health Department worked with four community-based organizations that served four Black, Indigenous, and people of color neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in NYC to build their organizational health literacy and NCLAS practices to improve their capacity to meet the needs of their communities. The approach included the development of a health literacy plan, didactics such as workshops and communities of practices, and a quality improvement process using the Plan-Do-Study-Act model where plans for improvement were introduced and changes were tested at rapid rates. This paper describes the implementation of CIHLA and lessons learned that may be helpful to other researchers and practitioners applying organizational health literacy principles and interventions in community settings to address health inequities.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1797312","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,12]],"date-time":"2026-06-12T05:45:50Z","timestamp":1781243150000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Strengthening the organizational health literacy capacity of community-based organizations to support COVID-19 precautionary behaviors in marginalized communities"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Sasha A.","family":"Fleary","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy","place":["New York, NY, United States"]},{"name":"CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health","place":["New York, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marita","family":"LaMonica","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy","place":["New York, NY, United States"]},{"name":"CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health","place":["New York, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Helena","family":"Van Troy-Duran","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene","place":["Long Island City, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Korin","family":"Parrella","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene","place":["Long Island City, NY, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","unstructured":""},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3097","DOI":"10.1007\/s11606-020-06081-w","article-title":"Racial and ethnic disparities in population-level covid-19 mortality","volume":"35","author":"Gross","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Gen Intern Med [Internet]"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e218799","DOI":"10.1001\/jamanetworkopen.2021.8799","article-title":"Association between income inequality and county-level COVID-19 cases and deaths in the US","volume":"4","author":"Tan","year":"2021","journal-title":"JAMA Netw Open [Internet]"},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"571","DOI":"10.1080\/00167428.2021.1951118","article-title":"COVID-19 mortality in New York city across neighborhoods by race, ethnicity, and nativity status","volume":"111","author":"Friedman","year":"2021","journal-title":"Geogr Rev [Internet]"},{"key":"B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1089\/heq.2023.0178","author":"Wurtz","year":"2024","journal-title":"Health Equity"},{"key":"B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"309","DOI":"10.1089\/pop.2023.0016","article-title":"New York city's community-based organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic: a descriptive analysis of local organizations' response efforts and their role during public health crises","volume":"26","author":"Madden","year":"2023","journal-title":"Popul Health Manag [Internet]"},{"key":"B7","unstructured":"Health Literacy"},{"key":"B8","unstructured":"The health literacy of America's adults: results from the 2003 national assessment of adult literacy\n          \n          \n            \n              Kutner\n              MA\n            \n            \n              Greenburg\n              E\n            \n            \n              Jin\n              Y\n            \n            \n              Paulsen\n              C\n            \n          \n          NCES 2006-483. 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