Published in CenterView October 26, 2009
Minority health grant addresses access to care, education in Delta
The University of Mississippi Medical Center's Mississippi Institute for Improvement of Geographic Minority Health will join with health-care groups across state lines to continue its work to improve the quality of health care for minorities and the rural disadvantaged.
Photo by Jay Ferchaud
Dr. Hamed Benghuzzi, third from left, professor and chairman
of the Department of Diagnostic and Clinical Health Sciences,
helps Professional Portal Track students conduct a
histopathological evalution.
The Institute for Improvement of Minority Health and Health Disparities in the Delta Region has been established with a four-year, $5.3 million-per-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. The grant will be used to address health disparities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.
Partners, such as Tulane University, Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama-Birmingham will collaborate on ways to attract future health-care workers and to educate the population impacted by health disparities. Added emphasis will be placed on HIV/AIDS education.
Dr. Warren A. Jones, director of the institute and distinguished professor of health policy at the Medical Center, said he had been waiting to hear if the project was approved, so the recent grant announcement was a welcome surprise.
"We're working on doing so many things in education and outreach," he said.
Mississippi is burdened with high rates of chronic disease, cardiovascular disease, low birth weight and infant mortality among minorities and those living in the state's rural areas.
While national attention has been focused on health-care reform, Jones said the institute's mission is to increase the number of health-care providers in the state to improve patients' access to medical care.
"There's got to be somebody there to see them, so we've got to have a pipeline," Jones said.
Dr. Rob Rockhold, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs, said part of the grant's goal is to establish a pipeline of training, research and interventions aimed at understanding causes of health disparities and ultimately reduce or eliminate them. One way of addressing health disparities is by cultivating more students to enter the health professions.
The Medical Center's Professional Portal Track-Master of Biomedical Science Program prepares students who have not been accepted into the School of Medicine, School of Dentistry or the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences for admission into one of the schools. Funded under the institute's previous grant, PPT is expected to continue to receive support under the new grant, Rockhold said.
Jones
A new program, the Delta Region-Health Education Leadership Program (DR. HELP), will employ regional networking on various programs targeting health disparities, such as PPT, rural physician scholarship programs at the Medical Center, UAB, LSU, and the Medical Center's Office of Multicultural Affairs.
"We'll look at best practices, overlap in programs or missing pieces and generate a larger picture to intervene in a critical region of the country," Rockhold said. "For the first time, the institute has blossomed from Mississippi-based to something that hits the entire Delta region because certainly the needs are not solely in this state."
Irena McClain, associate director of the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, said she's looking forward to branching out the organization's patient-education efforts to other regions of the state like the Delta. McClain said the institute provides funds for screening supplies and educational materials used at health events and churches.
"We go into minority and rural churches to do blood-sugar tests, lipid panels, total cholesterol and blood pressure screenings. We also do patient education on site to talk to patients about how they are taking their medicine, if they are taking it every day and any barriers obtaining medicine," she said.
The institute also partners with the foundation on the annual diabetes conference and CME conferences. She said she's pleased the new grant will allow the institute to continue addressing many of Mississippi's health ills.
"It's vitally important to be able to help people all over the state. (University of Mississippi chancellor) Dr. (Dan) Jones wants to personally take us from the worst to the first," she said.