(l-r) Enrique Navarro, pastor of St. Stephens Methodist Church, Patricia Hart, assistant professor of nursing, WellStar College of Health and Human Services Dean Richard Sowell, Janice Long, assistant professor of nursing, and Cheryl Nix are among the community partners collaborating on a research grant aimed at improving the health care of Hispanics and Latinos.

$200,000 grant funds diabetes research, treatment program

by Jennifer Hafer

There is a silent killer lurking among Georgia’s fastest growing minority community. Diabetes is the fifth-deadliest disease in the United States and it is preying on the Hispanic/Latino population, which is twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as non-Latino whites. But the School of Nursing’s Center for Community Healthcare has come up with an IDEAL way to help combat the incurable, yet treatable, disease: The Initiative for Diabetes Educational Advancement for Hispanics/Latinos.

In partnership with the Healthcare Georgia Foundation, the Center for Community Healthcare has begun Phase I of an 18-month program aimed at developing culturally sensitive diabetes education and intervention programs. While KSU has committed resources valued at $76,000 to the initiative, a $200,000 grant from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation kicked the program into high gear in May.

Since 1989, the School of Nursing has participated in Cobb Health Partners, a collaboration among KSU, Ministries United in Service and Trust Inc. (MUST), the YWCA, St. Stephens Methodist Church, the Cobb Douglas Board of Health, WellStar Health System and the District 13 Georgia Nurses Association, to operate three clinic sites in Marietta for the working poor. The clinics are staffed with volunteers, many of whom are KSU nursing faculty and students, under the supervision of a doctor. Collectively, the clinics saw 3,000 patient visits in 2001; approximately two-thirds of these patients were Hispanic/Latino.

“We have become an entry point into the health care system for these people,” WellStar College of Health and Human Services Dean Richard Sowell said. “We’re not wanting to become primary care physicians, but we wanted the opportunity to see people more than once who we’re helping to manage a chronic disease.”

Assistant Professor of Nursing Janice Long said the first six months of this pioneering work involves researching “the clinical and health education experiences of other community health centers and clinics providing service in areas within our state where there are high Hispanic/Latino populations, and to learn from representative members of local businesses and organizations.”

“Special emphasis will be placed on collaborating with the general Hispanic/Latino community to understand specific ways to identify pertinent needs and issues related to the successful provision of health care,” she said.
Beginning in January, the three clinics will begin implementing the program that is designed in the first six months. Over the course of a year, 250 Hispanic/Latino patients will be treated as part of the program, which seeks to become a model for other health care organizations.

“We believe that we can develop a culturally sensitive model that will cut down on the morbidity of diabetes and help our Hispanic and Latino patients control diabetes,” Sowell said. “If we execute this grant well, the potential implications are significant, in terms of opening doors for other grants. This seminal work will establish us as credible and doing good work.”

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