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Rachael Banks, front, speaks about the county's $3 million grant to improve health outcomes for African American residents, while county commissioners (from left) Judy Shiprack, Jules Bailey, Diane McKeel, Loretta Smith and County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury look on.

(Kelly House/The Oregonian)

Multnomah County’s elected commissioners say they’re done just talking about the wide health disparities between minorities and their white counterparts.

On Monday, they launched a $3 million initiative they hope will help close the gap.

During a gathering with faith leaders and community members in the county building's first floor board room, they announced the county's successful bid for a federal grant aimed at improving health outcomes for minorities.

“There are differences from the cradle to the grave, and it’s unacceptable,” County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury said at the gathering.

The county will use the money to create more smoke-free areas, increase the breastfeeding rate among African American moms and make healthy food more accessible in Rockwood, Gresham, and North and Northeast Portland – areas where African Americans make up a high percentage of the population.

It's the county's largest ever effort targeted at a specific racial group. It's also the second major funding initiative this year targeted specifically at racial minorities, following Commissioner Loretta Smith's successful push to add $1 million to this year's budget to keep minority youth in school and out of jail.

Rachael Banks, the county health department program director who pushed for the grant, said county outreach workers will incorporate smoking cessation and nutrition initiatives into their existing workload, while working with faith leaders and community groups to promote healthy habits to their followers.

The city of Gresham, for instance, will update its transportation plan to include food access as a priority when deciding where to put sidewalks and bike lanes. The county, meanwhile, has set a goal of opening two new stores that sell fresh food in east Multnomah County, possibly following the same model as Village Market in North Portland's New Columbia public housing complex.

“We will be increasing access by more than 17,000 people who have more fresh fruits and vegetables in places where they live, work and shop,” Banks said.

For Wilbert Hardy, senior pastor of Northeast Portland's Highland Christian Center, that means working with his fellow clergy members to encourage church members to make better use of their local parks.

“We’re going to leverage established relationships to make people healthier,” he said.

Monday's announcement comes just weeks after county health experts released data showing that poorer health outcomes for minorities – and African Americans in particular – start before birth. African American babies are far more likely than their white counterparts to die before birth or be born prematurely or underweight.

County health experts attributed the at-birth disadvantages to “toxic stress’ African American mothers encounter before and during pregnancy. That stress, county health officer Paul Lewis said, triggers genetic changes in the mother’s body, which are passed on to the growing fetus.

Researchers suspect those early-life disadvantages contribute to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and obesity among African American adults.

--Kelly House