Posted on February 11, 2002 at 10:31 a.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Center for Health Promotion, housed in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has received more than $5.3 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support minority-focused public health projects. Of 26 health promotion centers funded by the CDC, UAB received the greatest amount of funding. “Historically, UAB has ranked highest in overall CDC funding as well as total number of projects funded,” says James Raczynski, Ph.D., center director and chairman of the department of health education and promotion at UAB.
The award will fund 18 new and continuing projects to address various health-related issues facing African-Americans and other minority groups living in impoverished communities in the rural south. Specific projects will focus on oral health, transportation, physician training, cancer screening, healthcare for HIV-infected mothers and their infants and vaccinations for older adults.
Collectively, center projects are aimed at reducing the disproportionate rate of disease and death among minorities. “African-Americans and other minorities are at greatest risk for many diseases including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes,” says Raczynski. “This is, in part, because of shared risk factors for these diseases — low income, poor diet, lack of exercise and use of tobacco products — which tend be greater among minority groups.”
Rural communities in Wilcox and Perry counties are the focus of many center projects. “The sheer poverty of these communities is overwhelming,” says Raczynski. “Although access to care is an issue, residents there don’t have the resources to seek what care might be provided,” says Raczynski.
Community partnerships are the heart of center projects. “We depend on lay health volunteers, community residents looked to as leaders, and community boards to help develop and implement health promotion and disease prevention programs,” says Raczynski. “We work hard not to be perceived as outsiders but equal partners working together to address the needs of the community.”
The center also works closely with the Alabama Department of Public Health to integrate resources and services provided in the communities. “We’re making good progress,” says Martha Philips, Ph.D., deputy director of the center and chronic disease epidemiologist with the state health department.
One initiative is the creation of a farmers market in Uniontown, a small community in Perry County. “The state, in partnership with the Center for Health Promotion and the community, established the farmers market,” says Philips. “Since corner stores there don’t stock perishables, the farmers market is the community’s main source of fresh fruits and vegetables. It has been very successful.”
The center, which draws on the expertise of UAB faculty from across campus, first began working with the communities in 1993. “We are moving in the right direction and the people there are making it happen,” says Raczynski. “What they lack in resources they make up for in human capital — human capacity — to effect change. Our goal is to give them the tools they need to help themselves so that in the long run — 10 or 15 years from now — these are much healthier communities.”