Among Tennessee’s 95 counties, Lake County and Lauderdale County have the second and thirteenth highest poverty rates, respectively; and each has a significant number of residents struggling with health problems.
Lake County has the highest rate of low birth weights and smoking, Lauderdale County has the second-highest rates of diabetes and adult obesity, and both have life expectancy rates below the state and national average.
But a new grant awarded to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) could help change this.
The College of Nursing at UTHSC has received a four-year, $3.9 million grant that will enable the school to provide health care to the two counties, through a mobile health unit.
Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the project will be led by Diana Dedmon, DNP, an assistant professor at the college who grew up in Lauderdale County and works there as a nurse practitioner.
“There is a population in Lake and Lauderdale counties who have poorer health care outcomes due to difficulty accessing care,” she said, in a press release. “It’s exciting to know that these two communities will benefit from this grant.”
The first six months of the project are set to be spent developing partnerships and working with community advisory boards in the two counties, to determine needs and create plans to meet them. In the first year, the school will also look to purchase and retrofit a vehicle to serve as a mobile health unit, which will be staffed with an advanced practice nurse and medical assistant.
In addition to helping Lake and Lauderdale counties, the grant is expected to be used to expand the nursing workforce, and increase the cultural competency of nurses serving patients in rural areas.
Students in UTHSC's Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program will have the chance to earn microcredentials that prepare them to improve health equity, access, and outcomes for vulnerable populations. And, a Rural Scholars Program will be made in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program for three concentrations: family nurse practitioner, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and nurse midwifery.
Assistant professor Christie Manasco, Ph.D., will lead the rural education segment for the BSN program, and assistant professor Lisa Beasley, DNP, will lead the DNP Rural Scholars Program.
“The opportunity to have nurses lead a community-based, mobile health unit to serve the socioeconomic needs related to health care access of those citizens in Lake and Lauderdale counties will not only benefit these vulnerable populations, but will also help strengthen the rural health workforce,” Beasley said, in the release.
Awards like these are nothing new for UTHSC.
According to MBJ research, the institution received $126.6 million in research grants and contracts in FY 2021, the second most in the Memphis area, behind only St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
