Dental Clinic Expansion, Grant, Mobile Health Clinic, Other Efforts Seek To Reduce Racial, Ethnic Health Disparities

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• Framingham, Mass.: The Framingham Mental Health & Substance Abuse Health Disparities Project, which seeks to identify and address barriers to mental health care and substance abuse treatment services for local Hispanics, will launch on Friday, the MetroWest Daily News reports. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts and the MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation are funding the project. Its launch will include a public meeting to discuss the access issues and several mental health services providers will be available on site (Mineo, MetroWest Daily News, 1/14).
  
  
• Grand Ronde, S.D.: The Housing and Urban Development Indian Community Block Grant Program has awarded more than $3.2 million in grants to the Confederate Tribes of Grand Ronde and seven other tribes in the Pacific Northwest to fund infrastructure projects, the Salem Statesman Journal reports. The Grand Ronde tribe received $500,000 to expand its dental clinic (Much, Salem Statesman Journal, 1/14).
  
  
• Kannapolis, S.C.: The Salisbury Post on Thursday profiled health disparity nutrition expert Sangita Sharma who has joined the University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute. According to the Post, Sharma "pioneered ways to measure the nutritional intake of previously unstudied populations in some of the most remote regions on earth." Her studies focus on the causes of cancer, heart disease and diabetes in different ethnic groups and developing community programs to reduce their risks. Sharma said she hopes to establish similar research projects in Kannapolis and work with different ethnic groups to improve nutrition and lower risk factors for disease (Ford, Salisbury Post, 1/15).
  
  
• National Diabetes Education Program: NDEP on Monday launched a bilingual awareness campaign targeting Hispanics with diabetes, their families and health care workers to promote healthy eating. As part of the program -- "It's more than food, it's life" -- resources such as recipe books, posters, and additional tools for Hispanic diabetics and community health care workers will be available online. NDEP officials partnered with several national Hispanic organizations to develop the program and also consulted with nutritionists to create healthy Hispanic recipes (Maul, PRWeek, 1/13).
  
  
• New Orleans, La.: The March of Dimes and Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans offer no-cost prenatal care to local Hispanic women through two mobile units called "Mom & Baby Mobile Health Centers," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Using 2006 funds from the Qatar Katrina Fund and the people of Qatar, since 2007 one of the mobile health centers has partnered with local churches to offer culture and language-appropriate prenatal care to underserved Hispanic women. Between three and 15 women in their 20s and 30s who often speak little English and have transportation problems use the services daily, according to the Times-Picayune (Gershanik, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 1/15).