BOSTON, MA – The Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA) celebrated a major victory for local public health in Massachusetts with today’s signing of the Statewide Accelerated Public Health for Every Community (SAPHE 2.0) Act by Governor Maura Healey. SAPHE 2.0 was passed by the legislature as part of the Economic Development Bond Bill. The landmark law will significantly strengthen the state’s local public health system and improve consistent and equitable public health responses across the Commonwealth.
MPHA’s advocacy to shore up Massachusetts’ local public health system long predates the COVID-19 pandemic and the current election cycle, but these two seismic events threw into sharp relief the urgent need for SAPHE 2.0 to help foster public health and equity.
“For too long our local public health workforce has been stretched to the breaking point, responding to a relentless stream of public health challenges—from devastating weather events fueled by climate change to the opioid crisis and the viral spread of health disinformation,” said Oami Amarasingham, Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance.
MPHA Executive Director Carlene Pavlos and Deputy Director Oami Amarasingham co-signed a letter to the editor addressing President-Elect Trump’s plan to nominate the antithesis of public health to head the Health and Human Services Department. Pavlos and Amarasingham emphasized that, “regardless of who ultimately heads HHS, working in alliance—across communities, demographics, and sectors—is essential to meeting the public health challenges of today and tomorrow.”
Greenfield, MA—The Regional Transit Authorities Advocates Coalition (RTAAC) joined the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s event announcing the newest round of Fare Free Pilot Program grants open to the Commonwealth’s 15 Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs). These grants direct $30 million from the FY25 budget to support fare free RTA programs for the rest of the fiscal year that ends on June 30, 2025.
Today’s announcement of awardees for this year’s RTA Fare Free Pilot Program recognizes the need for affordable transportation in the over 250 communities that fall within an RTA service area in Massachusetts. When fares are eliminated in RTA service areas, ridership increases significantly, providing residents an affordable option to get to jobs, healthcare appointments, school, economic opportunities, and social engagements.
In addition to the Fare Free Grant Program, the Administration and Legislature have significantly increased operating funding for RTAs over the past two budget cycles. This has resulted in expanded bus routes, more frequent service, and night and weekend service. The increase in RTA funding is a real investment in public transportation across the Commonwealth. Taken together, this is a starting point of a strong commitment from state leaders to fund RTAs at a level where they can continue to expand service to meet the needs of communities statewide.
“Affordable public transportation is critical to help Massachusetts residents access resources and opportunities that help them lead healthy and thriving lives. By prioritizing free fares for RTA riders, and expanding service through significant investments over the last two budget cycles, the Administration and the Legislature have provided a lifeline to residents outside of the MBTA service area,” said Alexis Walls of The Massachusetts Public Health Alliance and one of the co-chairs of RTAAC.
Oami Amarasingham, Deputy Director, Massachusetts Public Health Association, and Craig Andrade, Associate Dean of Practice, Boston University of Public Health, co-signed a letter to the editor regarding recently released data from the MA Department of Public Health and a report from the Boston Public Health Commission calling for greater access to harm-reduction services and underscoring imperative to address structural racism for any policy approach to be both effective and equitable.
Spectrum News 1 featured MPHA’s Lobby Day in this segment.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette covered the MPHA Lobby Day at the State House and highlighted the leadership of Gary Rosen, a member of the Worcester Board of Public Health, and other legislator sponsors and community members who spoke on MPHA’s top three priority bills.
Carlene Pavlos, MPHA Executive Director, comments on importance of and learnings from implementation of Public Health Excellence grants.
The Boston Globe published a letter from MPHA regarding the need to both reduce direct out of pocket costs for health care while also prioritizing upstream public health approaches and solutions to tackle structural racism in healthcare, including statewide benchmarks and legislation like SAPHE 2.0 and An Act to Advance Health Equity to more comprehensively advance better health for everyone.
Alexis Walls, MPHA Assistant Campaign Director, spoke to Bob Seay on WGBH, on Transit Equity Day about regional transit and how we are honoring the legacy of Rosa Parks and other civil rights champions.
BOSTON — “Massachusetts residents live should not determine their mobility. People living in Regional Transit Authority (RTA) communities deserve access to robust transit that gets them where they need to go to live healthy and full lives,” said Alexis Walls, Assistant Campaign Director at MPHA. Community members along with MPHA, Transportation for Massachusetts, and other members of the RTA Advocates Coalition will present testimony at the Joint Committee on Transportation Public Hearing in support of the RTA Advancement Bill (H.3272/S.2277) on Wednesday, January 24.
Passage of the RTA Advancement Bill will codify a commitment of public funding into the regional transit system in Massachusetts as called for in the passage of the 2022 Fair Share Ballot Initiative; establish an RTA Fund in statute, mirroring the MBTA Fund; increase collaboration between RTAs, community stakeholders and state policymakers; and end the use of an outdated performance metric that incentivizes inequitable fare policies. For the 55% of Massachusetts residents who live outside the MBTA bus and subway service area, limited public transit negatively impacts access to employment, housing, food, and health care among other fundamental building blocks of good health. This is especially true for the low-income, older adults, and people with disabilities who are the primary users of RTAs.
Massachusetts Public Health Alliance
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