NEWS BRIEFS
Amerigroup Foundation Grants Morehouse School of Medicine $1.725 Million to Support Narrowing the Maternal Health Inequity Gap through Training Program
Morehouse School of Medicine Receives Nearly $9.7 Million Grant from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Build COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) has received a nearly $9.7 million grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create HealthWorks, a program to increase vaccine confidence in Georgia and Tennessee through targeted, culturally competent, and outreach education, with a focus on communities of color. Morehouse School of Medicine received the award from the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration as part of its Community-Based Workforce for COVID-19 Vaccine Program. Arletha W. Livingston (Lizana), PhD, MPH, MBA, director of MSM’s Innovation Learning Laboratory for Population Health and an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine, will lead the project as principal investigator. HealthWorks aims to reach individuals in the most vulnerable and medically underserved communities, which often have high levels of COVID-19 infections and lower-than-average vaccination rates. Over the next nine months, the initiative will utilize thousands of community outreach workers, including public health professionals, patient navigators, and social support specialists for outreach efforts.
MSM, UAB and Tuskegee University receive $18 million grant to reduce cancer disparities
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Primarily Caring
Morehouse School of Medicine is pleased to announce it has received a grant of $1.725 million to be awarded over the next 36 months from the Amerigroup Foundation. The grant will help fund Morehouse School of Medicine’s (MSM) Narrowing the Maternal Health Inequity Gap through Training program. The initiative will reach more than 127,000 pregnant and parenting Black women and their families, with the goal of narrowing maternal mortality and maternal morbidity disparities through enhanced communication, reduced bias, clinical care coordination, and improved performance for marginalized communities. Specifically, the grant funds Enhancing Communication and Respectful Care Training, Training of Perinatal Professionals, and a rural maternal health residency program to expand the maternal health workforce in Georgia. The initiatives will be led by MSM’s Center for Maternal Health Equity.
The National Cancer Institute has collectively awarded the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Cancer Health Equity Institute, University of Alabama at Birmingham’s O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Tuskegee University’s Multidisciplinary Center for Biomedical Research a five-year, $18 million grant renewal to study and address cancer disparities in underserved communities across the South. The grant will focus on intervention and prevention for these communities across the South, particularly in Georgia and Alabama — areas with some of the highest cancer mortality rates in the United States. The grant will enable researchers from the institutions to focus on implementing precision cancer medicine, cancer research, education, and training programs to try to understand the cause of cancer disparities. Researchers will also engage the community to identify other research and education areas and assure evidence-based cancer prevention and control strategies. This tripartite research effort, initially funded by NCI as a cooperative grant in 2006, pairs National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers such as the UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center with institutions, such as Morehouse School of Medicine and Tuskegee University, that work with underserved populations.
Winter/Spring 2022
