Customizable Technical Assistance, Resources, and Support Available to Augment Local Actions to Improve Indoor Air Quality
by Laura Fudala
It’s October, and you know what that means: another blog to celebrate National Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Awareness Month and update you on some of the exciting work we at the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) have been up to related to reducing indoor air risks.
As we move into October 2024, NCHH and our good friends at Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP) have just technically wrapped up our 2021-2024 three-year cooperative agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You can read annual updates from the last three Octobers here—2021, 2022, and 2023—and find examples of our TA, tools, and resources generated so far on NCHH’s website here and RAMP’s website here. If you peek for just a second, you’ll see that we were quite busy:
- Developing seven new technical assistance tools (including Using Community Block Grant Funding to Improve Indoor Air Quality, “Strong Foundations: A Practical Guide for Nonprofits with Limited Resources,” and an interactive Roadmap to Sustainable Asthma Home Visiting, to name just a few!);
- Launching three new modules for our Building Systems to Sustain Home-Based Asthma Services e-learning course to provide expanded content on incorporating virtual visits, partnering with the healthcare system, and the connections between racism, housing, and asthma;
- Hosting and/or cohosting multiple peer learning opportunities (such as the Finding Funding to Fix Radon Problems webinar with the American Lung Association and two communications capacity building trainings for TA partners);
- Awarding over $85,000 through mini-grants and scholarship opportunities;
- Working with approximately 78 TA partners across the two initiatives and specifically raising up their work and sharing lessons learned (e.g., group blogs, individual project blogs, and the Community Spotlight series); and
- So, so, so much more (e.g., conducting in-person technical assistance visits, presenting as subject matter experts at conferences or local coalition events, serving as experts in federal and/or regional meetings)!
Today, we are thrilled to announce that this work will continue as we were each awarded new three-year cooperative agreements with EPA (descriptions of projects here) to increase our efforts to reduce indoor air risks overall and expand and sustain in-home environmental asthma interventions. Both initiatives focus on providing customizable technical assistance, resources, and support to states, tribes, and communities designed to increase their capacity and readiness to advance strategies to improve IAQ. Our proven approach to TA prioritizes responsiveness and flexibility, supporting communities as both learners and leaders simultaneously while leveraging and investing in other aligned efforts. From the initial contact forward, we meet local change agents where they are and together determine how NCHH and/or RAMP can best engage to support them in creating healthy, thriving, and sustainable communities. Across the two agreements, we anticipate (1) providing individualized TA to a minimum of 60 states, tribes, and communities; (2) developing at least 10 new TA tools or peer learning events; (3) investing at least $75,000 of project funding in communities to increase capacity to address IAQ holistically; and much more.
We are so excited to be able to continue providing this TA, operating in the critical role of a flexible funding intermediary, and learning more about the challenges and opportunities around the country.
Let Us Help
Do you have a success story to share about how you are working to improve indoor air quality in your community? Are you working through a challenge or next step related to one of the many facets of building sustainable systems to address radon, provide home-based asthma services, and/or conduct comprehensive indoor air risk reduction? We can amplify your success, share feedback, provide peer examples that were successful (or not!), or even just be a friendly ear. Contact us today to learn more about how we can celebrate where you are now and help you get to where you want to be.
Either way, note that NCHH and RAMP offer customized, no-cost technical assistance and support that can help you translate the information in these tools into concrete actions that achieve cross-sector partnerships and put sustainable, systems-level policies and programs in place. Email us at askanexpert@nchh.org or TA@rampasthma.org to learn more today!
Laura Fudala, project manager, joined NCHH in January 2014 as a project coordinator to provide a wide variety of coordination, research, writing, and support functions on multiple NCHH projects. She currently manages a New York State Department of Health contract and an EPA cooperative agreement that together provide coordination, evaluation, technical, training, and/or programmatic support for healthy homes stakeholders such as the New York State Childhood Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program and those working to support the launch and growth of large-scale, evidence-based, sustainable asthma home visiting programs.