Office of Minority Health

Grantee Information

State of Rhode Island Department of Health
3 Capitol Hill Ste. 408, Providence, RI, 02908
https://health.ri.gov/

The State of Rhode Island Department of Health Office of Health Disparities (OHDHE) aims to eliminate health disparities among minority populations. It supports programs that improve access to health services for racial and ethnic minorities, improve data collection on minority health, increase racial and ethnic minority representation in science and health professions, and expand community-based health promotion and disease prevention outreach efforts.

Grant Project Information

FY10 State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health
$125,000.00

Abstract

The State Partnership project hopes to improve access to health care for racial and ethnic minorities in the state of Rhode Island. These minority populations are more likely to report a lack of health insurance, no specific source of ongoing care and no routine medical visits. Economic hardships, combined with high costs of medical services contribute to the high percentages of minority populations not visiting doctors on a regular basis. To address these issues, the project activities include supporting up to 10 meetings per year to raise awareness about health disparities, as well as producing annual reports on their costs. The project will also increase cultural and linguistic competence of health service providers. The intended outcomes include an increasing awareness and knowledge of linguistically appropriate programs among staff and partners, increasing consumer knowledge of their rights and responsibilities and creating an organized community health workforce to conduct health outreach. In order to determine if such outcomes are reached, data will be collected on a range of performance measures, including the number of employees that complete annual cultural competency training, the number of minorities with regular source of care and the number of certified community health workers. Surveys and interviews will be used as part of the data collection process.

OMH objective(s) toward which the project's results most contribute:

• 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)

Key Healthy People 2010 objectives or subobjectives toward which your project's results most contribute (see Appendix 3 of OMH's Evaluation Planning Guidelines):

Healthy People objectives were not identified.