UAMS Receives $115,000 for Public Health in Delta, Latino Populations
| LITTLE ROCK – Two grants totaling $115,358 to help promote better public health in the Arkansas Delta region and among Latinos in Arkansas have been awarded to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health and Delta Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in Helena/West Helena.
The grants are part of more than $1.5 million awarded this year to 33 health improvement programs in the state by the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas.
“We’re extremely pleased to receive this additional funding to continue and build upon the work we’re already doing to promote public health in Arkansas,” said Jim Raczynski, Ph.D., dean of the UAMS College of Public Health. “We support the Blue & You Foundation’s efforts to positively affect the health of all Arkansans.”
A grant of $80,961 was awarded to UAMS to provide basic health care resources such as flu vaccinations and cholesterol screenings to the more than 25,000 Latino visitors at the Mexican Consulate in Little Rock each year. The grant will be used to create the Ventanillas de Salud (Health Window) program beginning in 2010.
“We’re very excited to have the funds to establish this much-needed and very important relationship with the Mexican Consulate and the people it serves,” Raczynski said.
A grant of $34,397 was awarded to the Delta AHEC to provide HIV/AIDS awareness and testing clinics to serve more than 800 people in the Arkansas Delta. The Help Yourself HIV/AIDS program serves residents of Chicot, Crittenden, Desha, Lee, Monroe, Phillips and St. Francis counties.
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield established the Blue & You Foundation in 2001 as a charitable foundation to promote better health in Arkansans. In its eight years of operation, the Blue & You Foundation has awarded more than $10 million to 162 health improvement programs in Arkansas.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a new 540,000-square-foot hospital, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has 2,775 students and 748 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including nearly 1,150 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.