For Immediate Release Wednesday, May 31, 2006$4.4 Million
in Grants Awarded for Disease Prevention Programs
DENVER – Twenty grants, totaling nearly $4.5 million, have
been awarded to health care organizations and health
departments across Colorado to establish new and expanded
programs for the prevention and treatment of cancer,
cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. The grants are funded by
revenues from Colorado’s tobacco tax.
The new programs will range from cardiac rehabilitation
programs for the uninsured to promotora and patient navigator
programs. A promotora is an outreach worker in a Hispanic
community who acts as a bilingual liaison between health care
providers and patients. Patient navigator programs help
patients and their families negotiate the health care system,
from the first incident of an abnormal test result through
completion of treatment for a chronic disease.
A 16-member committee appointed by the Colorado Department
of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Legislature
reviewed applications for the funds and recommended the
grants, which cover the period from July 1, 2006, to June 30,
2007. The Colorado Board of Health approved the committee’s
recommendations. The Department of Public Health and
Environment’s Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease and Pulmonary
Disease Program administers the program. The grants total
$4,447,945.
Recipients include:
- Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative, Lakewood,
$498,465
The grant will fund an Improving Performance in Practice
initiative, which is designed to develop, test and implement
a population-based approach to following treatment
guidelines for patients with cardiovascular disease. The
project will begin in counties along the Front Range and in
Mesa County and reach providers throughout the state in
coming years. Contact: Allyson Gottsman, (720) 297-1681.
- Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Denver, $206,492
The grant will fund expansion of existing cancer screening
activities, implement a patient navigation program and a
health education program, and purchase equipment to improve
patient self-management. The program will be coordinated by
the Stout Street Clinic and serve the homeless in the Denver
metropolitan area counties of Denver, Boulder, Arapahoe,
Jefferson, Adams, Douglas and Broomfield. Contact: Joan
Christensen, (303) 285-5266.
- Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, Englewood,
$362,849
The grant will fund an evidence-based, continuous
quality-improvement program within 34 hospitals throughout
the state called, “Get With The Guidelines,” to reduce
deaths and the risk of recurrent heart attacks and strokes
in patients with coronary and other vascular diseases.
Contact: Michelle Mills, (303) 847-1727.
- Denver Health, Denver, $218,132
The grant will fund a screening program for Chronic
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease using spirometry. The program
includes a training program for physicians and other health
care providers on treatment of this pulmonary disease.
Contact: Tony Encinias, (303) 436-5401.
- Denver Health, Denver, $380,000
The grant will fund a program to enroll patients at risk of
cardiovascular disease into multiple prevention strategies,
including introduction to self-help tools, participation in
smoking cessation activities and community-based nutrition
services, and enhanced access to exercise activities. The
program will be carried out at two community health centers
affiliated with Denver Community Health Services. The
program primarily reaches patients from Denver County, but
also includes patients from Arapahoe, Jefferson, Douglas,
Boulder and Adams counties. Contact: Tony Encinias, (303)
436-5401.
- El Paso County Department of Health and Environment,
Colorado Springs, $495,600
The grant will fund a one-year project to add disease
management guidelines for five chronic diseases—including
hypertension, hyperlipidemia, asthma, congestive heart
failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease—to the
existing HealthTrack database system. This allows for
effective disease management for cancer, cardiovascular
disease and pulmonary disease for patients in El Paso
County. Contact: Susan Wheelan, (719) 575-8678.
- Entravision Communications Corporation, Denver, $87,800
The grant will fund the airing of a nationally syndicated
one-hour, Spanish-language radio show, “Previnid es Salud”
or “To Prevent is Health,” featuring Dr. Elmer Huerta. The
radio program targets Spanish-speaking Latinos statewide to
increase awareness of risk factors, screenings and treatment
for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and asthma.
Contact: Anne Smith, (303) 318-6220.
- Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
of Colorado, Denver, $129,935
The grant will fund a social marketing campaign called
“Health is Key GLBT” to address heart health and cancer
prevention. The three-year project will reach the gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender population with culturally
appropriate prevention and screening messages and match
at-risk individuals with culturally affirming practitioners.
Contact: Jennifer Woodard, (303) 733-7743.
- Gunnison County Public Health, Gunnison, $55,822
This grant will fund the continuation and expansion of a
community-based cardiovascular disease prevention and
screening program in Gunnison County offered at the Gunnison
County Public Health clinic and at work sites and other
community locations. The program provides low-cost
cardiovascular risk assessments followed by individual
client education through a brief counseling session.
Referrals then are made to local physicians for follow-up
care and to community services to assist clients in making
lifestyle changes. An information campaign designed to
increase knowledge of risk factors of cardiovascular
disease, as well as signs and symptoms of heart attack and
stroke, is also planned. Contact: Margaret Wacker, (970)
641-0209
- Jefferson County Department of Health and Environment,
Golden, $110,160
The grant will fund Heart Wise, a community-based program
adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s WISEWOMAN (Well-integrated Screening and
Evaluation for Women Across the Nation) project. The program
will screen for blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose,
body mass index (BMI), tobacco use, poor dietary habits and
inadequate physical activity. Clients with identified
disease or risk factors will be offered lifestyle
interventions and referred to partner agencies for follow-up
diagnostic and treatment services as appropriate. Contact:
Nancy Braden, (303) 239-7137.
- Klein Buendel, Inc., Golden, $390,000
The grant will fund a statewide skin cancer prevention
program in partnership with University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center that promotes sun protection and
self-examination, as well as a campaign reaching Anglo and
Hispanic adults and children in schools, health care clinics
and work sites. Contact: David Buller, (303) 565-4340.
- Sisters of Color United for Education, Denver, $90,498
The grant will fund a project using a family approach to
chronic disease prevention in the Latino community. The
project brings three respected Latino service organizations
together to accomplish comprehensive prevention education,
diagnostic and treatment interventions, and nutrition and
physical activity programs that address overweight/obesity
among high-risk Latinos in Denver, Las Animas and Huerfano
counties. This project uses the Promotora de Salud model for
healthy lifestyles education, patient navigation and
community mobilization to foster early detection and
treatment of disease. It expands the promotora model to two
new service areas in Colorado with potential for statewide
expansion. Contact: Rosanna Reyes, (720) 944-3821.
- Senior Connections on the Eastern Plains, based in
Denver, $58,248
The grant will fund an innovative approach to highlight the
interplay between clinical depression and heart disease and
will assist rural seniors and their health care providers to
adopt evidence-based interventions to reduce risk factors
that can be modified. The target population is the 18,000
seniors who live in the 10 rural, northeastern Colorado
counties and their physicians and other health care
providers. The project will involve beauticians, bartenders,
grange organizations and VFW posts. Senior Connections on
the Eastern Plains is a collaborative led by senior experts
from Wray, Cheyenne Wells and Denver. Counties served
include Sedgwick, Logan, Phillips, Morgan, Yuma, Kit Carson,
Cheyenne, Lincoln, Elbert and Washington. Contact: Nancy
McMahon, (303) 393-9555.
- St. Mary-Corwin Health Foundation, Pueblo, $94,800
The grant will fund a patient navigator project based on
evidence-based guidelines for proactive disease management
and early detection strategies. The program will provide
support to urban and rural patients diagnosed with a variety
of cancers throughout a 20-county region in southern
Colorado. The program will target patients experiencing
compounded health disparities and the providers who serve
them. Counties served include Pueblo, Fremont, Huerfano, Las
Animas, Otero and Prowers, as well as neighboring counties.
Contact: Don Abdallah, (719) 634-6725.
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center, School of Pharmacy, Aurora, $237,604
The grant will fund an expansion of pharmacy-based programs
to improve patient health outcomes related to diabetes in
rural areas of the state. The program has similar programs
in six diabetes clinics, including those in Pueblo and
Sterling, as well as four anti-coagulation clinics,
including those in Alamosa, Colorado City and Fort Lupton.
Counties served include Archuleta, Denver, Garfield, La
Plata and Lincoln, plus one other county to be named.
Contact: Christopher Turner, (303) 315-3867.
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center, Aurora, $416,313
The grant will fund America On the Move programs in Aurora
and Broomfield in Arapahoe and Broomfield counties.
Expansion to three additional communities is planned during
upcoming years. The program will work with residents of the
entire communities through individual programs, schools,
work sites, organizations and health care professionals. The
needs of the Latino population in both communities will be
addressed by providing culturally competent materials and
staff. Contact: Helen Thompson, (303) 315-9045.
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center, Aurora, $286,683
The grant will fund a statewide training program for
community health workers and patient navigators. The
proposed project builds on an existing extensive curriculum
for community health workers that was developed at Denver
Health in 2002 and is currently available through the
Community College of Denver. This training collaborative
will provide an expansion of existing curriculum to include
topics and skills relevant to patient navigation.
Also, this program will provide a conversion of the expanded
course to the “virtual classroom,” where it can be
accessible to workers in rural and underserved areas. The
outcome of this project is development of training modules
designed to meet the needs of the growing field of
navigation and the wide variety of backgrounds of outreach
workers and navigators. Contact: Deborah Mendez-Wilson,
(303) 724-1520.
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center, Aurora, $90,219
The grant will fund an expansion of an existing statewide,
evidence-based, elementary school nutrition education
program that targets fruit and vegetable intake. The
Integrated Nutrition Education Program (INEP) consists of
130 lessons, with 26 lessons for each grade from first to
fifth. The program uses hands-on learning through food
preparation and eating to increase children’s preferences
for fruits and vegetables, improve food preparation skills
and increase fruit and vegetable intake in the school
lunchroom. The program also includes parent education
through take-home, literacy-based book bags and quarterly
newsletters. The program serves low-income (greater than 50
percent free-reduced school lunch participation rate)
elementary schools, reaching 18,000 children, ages 6-12
years, and their families. The program is bilingual and is
targeting Hispanic population areas within Denver during its
first year and Hispanic populations in Alamosa, Aurora,
Center, Trinidad and Weld County in its second year of
operation. Contact: Deborah Mendez-Wilson, (303) 724-1520.
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences
Center, Department of Family Medicine, Predoctoral
Education, Aurora, $225,379
The grant will fund the development and implementation of a
new curriculum on prevention of cardiovascular disease
beginning in the first year and offer the Family Medicine
Clinical Training Block and the new Rural and Care of the
Ambulatory Adult Clinical Training Blocks in the third year.
This project will directly impact medical students, their
physician-teachers and the patients and communities served
by these Clinical Training Blocks. The Family Medicine
Clinical Training Block serves mainly rural and frontier
communities and four of the sites are designated as part of
the Hispanic Health Curriculum. The proposal will bring
together evidence-based guidelines that impact
cardiovascular disease and teach medical students and their
professors to appropriately use guidelines in
community-based practice environments. Counties served:
Adams, Alamosa, Chaffee, Denver, El Paso, Grand, Gunnison,
Huerfano, Jefferson, Lake, Larimer, Logan, Mesa, Moffat,
Montezuma, Montrose, Morgan, Otero, Pitkin, Pueblo, Rio
Grande, Routt, Summit, Weld and Yuma. Contact: Deborah
Mendez-Wilson, (303) 724-1520.
- Wray Rehabilitation and Activities Center, Wray, $12,946
The grant will fund a cardiac and pulmonary rehab program in
partnership with the Wray Community District Hospital. It
will provide a referral path for patients at high risk for
heart disease to treatment and education programs through
the hospital’s cardiac and/or pulmonary treatment program.
The goal is to encourage patients to continue treatment
outside of the hospital setting and develop healthier
lifestyles. Counties served: Yuma and Phillips. Contact:
Philip Riggleman, (970) 332-4451.
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