The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced today the availability of over $100 million in funding for up to 75 Community Transformation Grants. Created by the Affordable Care Act, these grants are aimed at helping communities implement projects proven to reduce chronic disease, violence and injury, and improve mental health and equity.

Notably, this round of funding increases the grant cycle to a five-year period, which will allow communities more time to tailor and implement strategies, engage communities and ultimately shift norms around healthy eating and physical activity. It will also engage multiple sectors, encouraging community-based organizations, local and state governments to work together to build sustainable, effective change. Additionally, 20 percent of these funds will be dedicated to rural and frontier communities, areas which face particular challenges in resources and implementation. This funding cycle emphasizes health equity, with specific outcomes geared towards improving health among those who face the greatest disparities, along with resources dedicated directly towards building capacity.

This year’s release also contains new, and much-needed language underscoring the role that safety and preventing violence plays in promoting healthy eating, physical activity and equity. Prevention Institute urges all of our partners and colleagues to consider how this funding might be used in their communities, and we particularly encourage our allies in preventing violence to think about how their work contributes to the elimination of chronic disease and improves community wellbeing overall. A new fact sheet, Violence and Chronic Illness, released today through Prevention Institute’s Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY), provides data and research that links emotional and physical injury to longer term health consequences including asthma, unhealthy eating, heart and lung disease, and more.These fact sheets were designed to persuade educators and those in health, public health and mental health that violence can undermine the work of all sectors, and that everyone should include preventing violence in their efforts.

These funds are a critical component of creating a system that promotes wellness and health alongside medical care and treatment. Community Transformation Grants build on the groundbreaking efforts of Communities Putting Prevention to Work funding established through ARRA—community prevention initiatives that are already showing great success.

The official funding opportunity announcement for the Community Transformation Grants can be found at www.Grants.gov by searching for CDFA 93.544. For more information about the grants, visit www.cdc.gov/communitytransformation.