Callahan Foundation Awards MetroHealth’s School Health Program Grant to Fund Vaccine Initiative

Indicators of health and wellness within the school-aged population of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland illustrate the criticality of improved access to preventive and comprehensive care. Research shows that students perform better when they show up for class, healthy and ready to learn.

MetroHealth’s School Health Program (SHP) provides services that help students avoid health-related absences. School-based health centers have many benefits, including giving students direct access to healthcare providers while at school and serving all students (including those without insurance or transportation). These health centers lower barriers to access care while also improving school attendance, rates of graduation, vaccination rates and access to and use of mental health and preventive services.

As part of its SHP, MetroHealth employs a mobile health clinic, which visits 11 schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and is available to provide convenient, coordinated care to more than 5,800 students. This includes administering vaccinations (following consent from the student’s caregiver), including both required and optional vaccines.

It is estimated that between 25 and 35 percent of students district-wide have not received the immunizations required and/or recommended by the Ohio Department of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Offering vaccinations through the MetroHealth mobile health clinic will make vaccinations more accessible and available to all children.

To support this focused vaccine management initiative, the Callahan Foundation has awarded a $24,000 grant to MetroHealth’s SHP.

“We are grateful to the Callahan Foundation for understanding the need to keep the children in our community healthy. Our goal is for students to be healthy and stay in school, which means they will have better health education outcomes than those who don’t graduate,” said Kathleen Davis, RN, MetroHealth SHP vaccine coordinator. “The funding from the Callahan Foundation will allow us to serve more students in our community and have an increasingly positive impact on their overall health.”