UAMS awarded $18.9M grant to study health disparities in Black, rural communities
“‘It’s expensive to be poor — it’s very expensive to be poor,’ Fagan said. Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde said the county is a good research subject for the grant, calling it the ‘perfect blend of rural and urban living.’
‘In partnership and through funding provided by this grant, [UAMS] will be able to further provide services into areas that remain primarily underserved and vulnerable to effects of health disparities,’ Hyde said.
In rural Arkansas, where cancer and heart disease rates are the highest, access to affordable healthcare can be hard to find as there are few doctors and health clinics in some parts of the state.
‘Even people who have insurance or who have Medicaid have issues getting to healthcare in a lot of our rural areas,’ Cornell said […]
‘This award expands on our statewide efforts to address three major risk factors for cancer: tobacco use, obesity/nutrition issues and alcohol use,’ Birrer said in a statement. Arkansas communities are hit disproportionately by cancer compared to other states in the nation. We now have an opportunity to address cancer risk and social determinants of cancer risk factors.’