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Year Awarded: 2006
Project Leaders:
Linda Hunt, Anthropology; Heidi Connealy, Anthropology; Margaret Holmes-Rovner, MSU Center for Ethics; Monica Kwasnik, Allen Neighborhood Center
Project Description:
Chronic disease management is especially difficult for individuals with limited resources and access to health care. The Allen Neighborhood Center (ANC) Health Outreach Team provides a variety of neighborhood based programs to Lansing's economically and racially diverse Eastside Neighborhood. These programs are designed to help poor residents maintain health and manage chronic diseases. While ANC has been successful in helping many people address their health needs, there are many others in the target area who do not utilize its programs. Through the proposed research project we will evaluate how the ANC programs and services impact poor individuals' ability to manage chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes. We will give particular attention to reasons why some individuals use ANC's programs to help maintain health and manage chronic diseases while others do not. Using existing contacts and health programs at ANC, we will conduct interviews and participant observation to identify factors related to the use of existing health and food programs and provide information that will be used to develop interventions for increased program recruitment and participation. Findings from this project will be used to produce a report with recommendations to ANC for improved program use and participant recruitment. It will also provide pilot data for a larger study of chronic disease management in Lansing, for which external funding will be sought.
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