HHS awards Morehouse School of Med $40M for COVID-19 relief initiative
The three-year project designed to work with community-based organizations across the nation to discover resources to help fight the pandemic
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced a new partnership with Morehouse School of Medicine to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority communities.
“This new partnership between the Morehouse School of Medicine and our Office of Minority Health will work with trusted community organizations to bring information on COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, and other services to the Americans who need it,” said HHS Secretary, Alex Azar in a press release.
READ MORE: Morehouse College pledges laptop giveaway for students as pandemic highlights digital divide
The initiative has been named, the National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC).
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The three-year project designed to work with community-based organizations across the nation to deliver education and information on resources to help fight the pandemic.
According to NPR, African-American deaths from COVID-19 are nearly two times greater than would be expected based on their share of the population.
Read more: Poll: Black Americans most likely to know a COVID-19 victim
The initiative will create an information network that will strengthen efforts to link communities to COVID-19 testing, healthcare, and social services and to best share and implement effective response, recovery, and resilience strategies.
“We know the power of partnerships to help us solve our most pressing public health challenges,” said Dr. Jerome Adams, the US Surgeon General, “This initiative has at its core the community-based organizations who know their people best and who are committed to working collaboratively to reduce health-inequities and make them healthy and safe.”
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According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the HHS grant is believed to be the largest, single federal contribution to the medical school, founded in 1975, in its history.
“This work will create the opportunity to measure the effectiveness of interventions being deployed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19,” said Morehouse School of Medicine President and Dean Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, “the results of which should lead to a new-found knowledge base to better prepare for and respond to future pandemics, especially in vulnerable communities.”
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