The Two Georgias Initiative, Healthcare Georgia Foundation

The EPRC currently serves as the initiative-level evaluator for Healthcare Georgia Foundation’s Two Georgias Initiative, a multiyear investment in rural Georgia community partnerships that will work to achieve health equity through the elimination of health disparities in Georgia’s rural communities. In addition to funding, the Foundation is providing technical assistance and coaching to its eleven grantee communities on topics including health equity, finding and using available health data, state/local health policy issues, and program evaluation.

In the first year of the grant, partnerships conducted local community health needs assessments to inform the development of a community health improvement plan to be implemented in years 2-4 and sustained in year 5 and beyond. The EPRC is supporting grantees in developing and implementing their local evaluations and is conducting a cross-site evaluation to answer questions about how the initiative works and the changes that result from the collective work of the initiative. Evaluation data collection strategies include partnership and community surveys, key informant interviews, as well as review of program documents and secondary data.