Office of Minority Health

Grant Program: State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health

Grantee

Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Office of Health Equity
Frankfort, KY
Project: Addressing Health Equity through Collaborations and Partnerships for a Healthier Kentucky
Amount: $150,000

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Office of Health Equity (OHE) was established in 2008 to address disparities and adverse outcomes among the state’s racial and ethnic minorities. The OHE is committed to eliminating health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities and rural and low-income populations. OHE’s primary objectives are to increase awareness of health disparities, strengthen leadership at all levels for addressing health disparities, enhance patient-provider communication, improve cultural and linguistic competency in delivering health services, and improve coordination and utilization of research and outcome evaluations.

Project Abstract

The Office of Health Equity plans to enhance and support two program areas within the Kentucky Department of Public Health. Year 1 will focus on the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening Project and Year 2 will support the Kentucky Women’s Cancer Screening Program. The project intends to address Kentucky’s high rates of colon and cervical cancer, which disproportionately affect African Americans and other minority populations in the state.

The office will work with the Colon Cancer Screening Project to provide technical assistance and training, screening services, and cultural competency and health literacy training to the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening Project patient navigators.

For the Kentucky Women’s Cancer Screening Program, the office will adapt health literacy tools related to screening and public awareness campaigns and will increase recruitment and screening of rarely or never screened women in minority and rural underserved communities.

The project is intended to:

• Provide colon cancer screening and referral services through local health departments to 1,000 people in communities of color or underserved communities
• Ensure that 80 percent of the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening Project patient navigators and providers receive cultural competency and health literacy training with a pass rate of 80 percent
• Survey patients pre- and post-intervention to capture increased knowledge and improved attitudes about the need for colon cancer screening among communities of color
• Increase the number of rarely or never screened women ages 40–64 to achieve the target of 156 additional rarely or never screened women in 26 counties for the project year
• Ensure that 80 percent of the Women’s Cancer Screening Program patient navigators receive cultural competency and health literacy training with a pass rate of 80 percent
• Survey the patients pre- and post-intervention to capture increased knowledge and improved attitudes about the need for cervical cancer screening among communities of color

The office will use the following performance measures:

• Demographic data
• Number of social determinants of health training modules completed
• Patient surveys distributed on social marketing and media campaigns, patient navigators, quality of services and access to care
• Patient data entered into patient service reporting system and the minimum data element collection forms
• Number of training modules completed
• Pre-/post-surveys on cancer knowledge, health history and other social indicators

The office will collect information using training modules, pre-/post- surveys, electronic data systems, minimum data element collection forms and the Patient Results Pending Screen reporting system.

Objectives

• Increased awareness, education and outreach to address racial/ethnic minority health and health disparities problems
• Improved access to, and appropriate utilization of, health and other community-based services and systems through user-centered design for racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., health IT, culturally/ linguistically appropriate services, service provider education/ training, workforce diversity)
• Strengthened leadership and coordination to leverage resources and enhance effectiveness and efficiency of individual and collective efforts (including, but not limited to, research and data)

Healthy People 2020 objectives toward which the project’s results contribute:

• Increase Kentucky’s five-year survival rate by 10 percent for all cancer types, especially among sub-populations