UNE's Center for Community and Public Health partners with others to establish Downeast Community Health Worker Program to combat diabetes
The University of 51小黄车's Center for Community and Public Health (CCPH) has partnered with Mount Desert Island Hospital, the Mount Desert Island Visiting Nurses Association, and Healthy Acadia (a Healthy Maine Partnership agency) to create the Downeast Community Health Worker Program, which will provide services to people with diabetes and pre-diabetes in the Mount Desert Island Hospital service area with the intention of mitigating the disease and lessening the mortality rate.
Mount Desert Island Hospital received funding for this endeavor through a (HRSA) grant of $450 million. The funding will be used to form the alliance, create a Community Healthcare Worker model program, and integrate this model into the healthcare system to ensure sustainability in diabetes and prediabetes outcomes for patients in the Mount Desert Island service area.
CCPH, under guidance of its director, Ronald Deprez, Ph.D., MPH, the project evaluator, received $102,313 for a three-year period for their contribution to the project. CCPH will conduct a needs assessment and the evaluation component of the Downeast Community Health Worker Program. Specifically, CCPH will address the need for preventing diabetes and improving its management and the need for education through the expansion of this consortium to the mainland communities in Hancock and Washington Counties.
HRSA is the primary federal agency charged with improving access to healthcare services for people who are uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable.