SPRINGDALE -- Research is one of four main pillars of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and community members are invited to hear Friday how a $2.99 million study is progressing.
An update will be presented about the grant from the Centers for Disease Control to study health disparities among the Hispanic and Marshallese populations in Benton and Washington counties. The public meeting is from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Jones Center in Springdale.
Community meeting
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest will host a public meeting from 9- to 11 a.m. Friday at the Jones Center, 922 E. Emma Ave. in Springdale.
The meeting will feature an update on efforts to increase access to healthy foods and chronic disease management and prevention services for the area’s Hispanic and Marshallese residents. The school is studying health disparities for those residents as part of a $2.99 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control’s Division of Community Health.
May Lee, deputy director of the PolicyLink Center for Health Equity and Place, will give the keynote speech on “Why Race and Place Matter.” Other speakers include Dr. Peter Kohler, vice chancellor of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest; Pearl McElfish, director of the school’s Office of Community Health and Research; and R. Michael Stephens, program director of the Office of Community Health and Research.
Source: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest
About 50 attendees of the Senior Democrats of Northwest Arkansas listened Tuesday as Dina Wood and McGee Meredith, with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, told what has happened on the school's Fayetteville campus since opening in 2007.
Wood said the school's three other pillars are education, patient care and outreach. She is senior director for the medical school's office of development.
"The reason we are here is to fill the healthcare gap," she said, pointing to national studies that estimate the United States will be about 200,000 physicians short by 2020.
The Northwest campus is in the 330,000-square-foot former home of Washington Regional Medical Center on College Avenue in Fayetteville. It houses four colleges: medicine, nursing, pharmacy and health professions. A physical therapy doctorate program gets underway this fall with its first 24 students and plans are in the works for an internal medicine residency program that will have eight residents a year.
Wood said 680 students have graduated from the school's programs, and about 75 percent have remained in Northwest Arkansas to work.
"It's important to keep them here," she said.
The medical school treats about 50,000 patients annually at clinics in Fayetteville and Springdale. It also operates several other specialized services such as the the Arkansas Aging Initiative with the Schmieding Center and the Psychiatric Research Institute inpatient services at Northwest Health Center.
Meredith, communications manager for the Office of Community Health and Research at the Northwest campus, said the school is managing about $5 million in grant money. The Health and Research office grew from three employees in October to 25, including five Marshallese and two Hispanic workers, she said.
A free health clinic run by students for Marshallese diabetic patients is one way the school reaches out to the community, Meredith said. She said the North Street Clinic could be larger if they had more students and faculty to run it.
"The demand is there," she said.
Martha Agee, a member of the Senior Democrats, said after the meeting it's important for people to know what is going on around them.
"We all live in our own little circles," she said. "I think everyone needs to know more about the school and what they are doing. We all want a healthier community."
NW News on 05/20/2015