>newground
At the Center of Excellence, Claudia Lazdins (left) offers Hispanic women counseling on HIV/AIDS.
The legacy of Nina Mason Pulliam has been working its magic on the Indianapolis region for seven years. And in that time, IUPUI has become an important partner with the trust formed in her name.
This year, the Pulliam Trust gave $100,000 to the IU National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
The center was one of several such centers set up across the nation in 1997 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its purpose is to create a model of care, education, and research related to women’s health that can be used in other communities.
Its scope is enormous, ranging from research on women’s health to education for everyone from preschoolers to practicing physicians. There is also a great emphasis on community outreach, providing information to women and families on disease prevention.
A large part of the center’s focus is under-represented groups, such as Hispanic, black, inner-city, and rural populations. The new grant will help it meet the challenge of providing Hispanic women and their families in the Indianapolis region with full access to health care.
Dr. Rose S. Fife, the director of the center, sends home the urgency of this particular need. As she explains, “Unlike some parts of the country, where Hispanics have resided for decades, Hispanics in Indianapolis have arrived relatively recently and their numbers have grown quickly.”
As a result, very few health care providers in Indiana speak Spanish, making it difficult to communicate with this growing community.
The grant pays for a full-time bilingual outreach coordinator to help provide continuous outreach to the Hispanic community. The coordinator will create a network of volunteers to go into the community and provide presentations in comfortable settings where Hispanic women can discuss anything—from health issues to everyday concerns.
Michael Twyman, director of grants for Indiana at the trust says, “The program provides the trust with a unique opportunity to assist the center in reaching the female Hispanic community and addressing its health needs, while furthering the trust's mission to serve women, children, and families. We think Mrs. Pulliam would have been so proud of this effort.”
Other recipients of Pulliam Trust grants at IUPUI include: the Eye Care Community Outreach program, the Shalom Health Care Center, the Nina Mason Pulliam Legacy Scholars program, and the El Puente project—a three-year project aimed at keeping Hispanic students in school.
>Liz Rosdeitcher
Learn more about the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust and the IU Center of Excellence in Women’s Health.
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