Montgomery County health officials outline outreach, budgets and push for disaggregated metrics for three equity programs

Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services officials updated the County Council on three culturally focused health initiatives and their plans for outreach, evaluation and the coming budget cycle. "Montgomery County is 1 of the most diverse counties in the nation," the department's chief health officer said, framing the programs as core to the county's public-health strategy.

The briefing covered the Latino Health Initiative (LHI), the African American Health Program (AHP) and the Asian American Health Initiative (AHI), which the department says were created to reduce persistent barriers to care. "My name is Mariana Sarani. I'm the senior manager for the Latino Health Initiative," Sarani said as she described LHI's 10-year blueprint (set to expire this year) and a 14-program portfolio that includes asthma management, climate-and-health work, parent cohorts addressing substance use and a "Welcome Back" workforce center preparing internationally trained health professionals for local licensure.

LHI reported a staff of 16 merit employees and multiple program awards. Sarani said the revamped Welcome Back Center expects an initial large graduating cohort, with about 12 participants on track to complete RN requirements by June.

Waina Dixon, program manager for AHP, laid out five priority disparities for Black residents — economic stability, access to care, chronic disease, maternal and infant health, and homeownership — and described prevention-focused services including the SMILE maternal program, diabetes-prevention cohorts, remote patient monitoring and expanded screening and referral work. "Our mission is to eliminate health disparities and improve the number and quality of years of life for African American residents and people of African descent in the county," Dixon said.

Mohammed Hassan, AHI program manager, emphasized the need for disaggregated data to identify high-need subgroups within the county's diverse Asian communities. Hassan summarized AHI's capacity-building work through the Asian Center of Excellence (ACE), including ACE microgrants (per-organization caps and a $101,000 total microgrant pool) and the Healthy Communities Fund solicitation (roughly $1,500,000 available in the fund for FY26 awards). He noted that ACE technical assistance and microgrants aim to help small organizations modernize data collection and leverage grants.

Budget figures cited during the briefing showed FY26 appropriations the department discussed: African American Health Program $4,300,000; Asian American Health Initiative $3,700,000; Latino Health Initiative $6,200,000 (the Black Physicians Health Network was noted separately with $3,600,000). During Q&A, LHI said it had spent approximately 50–60% of its RFP-awarded funds to date and expected to use remaining allocations by June 30; AHP reported about 41% of its contract budget remaining; AHI said roughly 90% of grant funds had been committed with about 10% unallocated.

Councilmembers pressed DHHS to move beyond countywide aggregates and agree up front on performance metrics and disaggregated outcomes for each initiative. "I do think we need to to take this effort to the next level of disaggregated data," Councilmember Friedson said, urging the department to define program-level metrics and evaluation approaches so partners and the public can assess impact and inform budget priorities.

Department staff agreed the department is building shared data capacity and epidemiology support to produce both programmatic and countywide views of disparities, but said some limitations remain around data sharing and privacy. Councilmembers also raised operational concerns tied to community outreach: staff said they are adapting outreach practices because immigration fears have reduced in-home engagement in some communities, using measures such as limiting event address publication until registrants are confirmed and relying on trusted community health workers and partners to reassure residents about safety and emergency care access.

The council closed the session by thanking initiative staff and noting the upcoming county executive recommended budget release. The briefing did not include any formal votes.