At large position one and chair of this city council quality of life committee, and we're pleased to be meeting this afternoon to hear a presentation.

I want to note those council members present with us are Councilmember Sally Elkorn and Councilmember Amy Peck as well.

We have staff from Councilmember Mario Castillo's office, Councilmember Twilight Carter's office, Mayor Pro Tem Martha Castex Tatum's office, Councilmember Tiffany Thomas's office, and Councilmember Joe Panzarella's office as well.

This meeting is being broadcast, and we will have a chance for public comment.

I'm not sure how many folks have signed up, but whoever is present will give you the option to make some public comment if you so choose.

This afternoon, we will be hearing a presentation on access to health care and assessment and report.

So without further ado, we'll go ahead and recognize you, Dr.

Shelton, for this uh presentation.

And we will we'll watch it on the screen.

We didn't print it out, so we'll save save a few trees today, and uh be pleased to follow after.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for um inviting us here and allow us to speak to you.

Again, my name is Dr.

Melissa Shalton, and I work for the City of Houston Health Department, and my counterpart is um Brandon Maddox.

I'm gonna have him tell a little bit about himself before we get started, and how we really came.

This is more of a story, how we came together to do a collaborative project, which is I believe it's the first project that is very in-depth between the City of Houston Health Department and Harris County.

And Brandon, before you do that, I just want to recognize that uh Councilmember Willie Davis has joined us as well.

So go ahead, Brandon.

Good afternoon.

Um, and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Brandon Maddox.

I'm the director of planning and innovation for Harris County Public Health.

Um I work under uh Leah Barton for the public health department.

And um, you know, like like Dr.

Shelton said, uh, this has been a truly collaborative experience between um Harris County and the City of Houston.

It's one of the first major reports, and it's a report that uh both the city health department and the county health department are required to do as part of our public health accreditation.

And um, yeah, it's been it's been an incredible journey.

We've been working on this since June or July of uh 2025, and I'm really excited to see what comes out of it.

Because I think a lot of times we we develop reports and uh we publish it out, and the extent that somebody reads it, you know, that's that's great.

But the action and uh the recommendations and the commitments that come out of it, those are really um where we see uh this report having a lot of value.

So just thank you.

You bet and just a quick question before you get started.

Are it is the city and the county required to do this report jointly or separately, or how does that work?

So we're not required to do it jointly, but it's beneficial and streamlined, and we actually serve the same um population, especially when we're talking about patients and clients and so forth.

And it was um because our clients cross over whether from City of Houston to go to access Harris County resources or whether Harris County clients and patients access that.

So it was very beneficial, and it is required.

Thank you.

You may proceed.

Okay.

So again, um, as I mentioned, I'm from the City of Houston Health Department, and I also want to um mention that I'm under the leadership of Dr.

Tran, Teresa Tran, our uh new director, and so forth.

And again, it's a pleasure for us to be working together on this project.

Next slide.

So, as we are gonna talk a little bit about this um project, access to care assessment and report.

There's some key components we really want to have a storytelling to inform everyone about, as we all know, there are challenges when it comes to individuals accessing health care, whether they're receiving it, being able to pay for it, whether they have insurance or not.

So, what we're gonna have our conversation and discussion with you all is a little bit about um the report, what type of methodology, the summary of findings, and the three main topics that we came across in regards to whether it's affording care, finding care, receiving care.

We kind of call it like the three C's, and then of course, what our next steps are going to be.

Next slide.

So with again, the support report is and our actions are aligned with our accreditation because both health departments are um accredited.

Next slide.

And with this, as I mentioned earlier, we have four different types of um categories for that identify specific gaps and barriers.

One, we did we conducted a landscape analysis and community health data, collecting population demographics, but most importantly, that you're going to be finding that we're going to discuss momentarily is about the recommendations and opportunities for action that we've really received with through the conversations of our um community partners, such as our providers, leadership from Harris County Health Department, the our City of Houston Health Department, Harris Health System, and also Harris Center, and that will help drive where we're trying to move forward to.

Next slide.

So with this, as we mentioned, in these three C's as affording, finding, and receiving care, we do have to look at whether it's primary, behavior, dental care, and safety net facilities and so forth.

And these are what helps with the breakdown.

Next slide.

So we look to the far right, or maybe to your left, the health department's strategic priority to ensure access to care and resources.

This aligns with what our City of Houston mayor initiatives are.

And then, of course, we have the key initiatives that support the mayor's priorities.