Social connection can help reduce people’s risk of chronic disease and serious illness and promote longer, healthier lives. Studies show that social connection can improve physical and mental health by reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia and depression and anxiety. Social connection also helps build resilience and trust within communities, leading to healthier communities.
USAging’s Strengthening Social Connection in Communities (SSCC) issued a call for proposals for grants to replicate and sustain evidence-based and evidence-informed social connection programs, partnerships, and referral processes in communities, attracting more than 150 applications. Applicants submitted to one of two tracks and were required to select one of the approved social connection programs for their project:
Track 1: Program Replication/Expansion
Applicants introduced one of the approved social connection programs (see list below) to their organization, or, if already offering one of these programs, sought to expand it to reach new communities or populations.
Track 2: Cross-Sector Partnership
This track emphasizes the development or expansion of approved social connection programs (see list below) through partnerships between community-based organizations (CBOs) and health care partners (such as hospitals, health systems or accountable care organizations), or the implementation of improved referral processes between health care providers and CBOs for social connection programs in the communities they serve (e.g., social prescribing).
Approved Programs
- PEARLS
- Wits Workout
- Circle of Friends
- Memory Cafes
- Opening Minds Through Art
- Technology
- Social Prescribing
Congratulations to the following organizations:
- Ardent Solutions, Inc. (New York)
- Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe (Nevada)
- Hearts and Hands: Faith in Action-New York
- Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)
- Native American Community Services of Erie and Niagara Counties, Inc. (New York)
- Pima Council on Aging (Arizona)
- SeniorsPlus (Maine)
- Trustees of Indiana University (Indiana)
- CHPcommunity, Inc. (Iowa)
- Community Living Campaign (California)
- Taylor County Health Department (Wisconsin)
Learn more about the SSCC grant awardees here.