On January 18th, HRSA’s Office of Rural Health Policy released the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) (HRSA-13-157) soliciting applications for the “Delta States Rural Development Network Grant Program”. The grant program is in place to fund organizations in the eight states that includes Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri.
The grant program helps to develop local healthcare needs and addresses prevalent health disparities in rural Delta communities. The Delta Program provides resources to help rural communities develop partnerships to jointly address health problems that can’t easily be solved by single entities working alone.
Applicants are required to propose multi-county/multi-parish projects that will help provide clinical health services for individuals with or at risk of developing chronic health diseases. Health indicators may include changes in knowledge, behavior, attitudes, as well as clinical biometrics and should demonstrate improvement in the rural Delta communities over time.
Due to the high disparities in the region, applicants need to propose a program based on one of the health focus areas such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity. Chronic disease initiatives can be in programs focused on prevention, self-management, care coordination, or clinical care, but must be outcomes oriented.
Rural public or rural nonprofit private entities representing a network composed of three or more healthcare providers either nonprofit or for profit entities may apply. The applicant organization must be located in a non-metropolitan county or in a rural census tract of a metropolitan county and all services must be provided in a non-metropolitan county or rural census tract.
Applications are due March 18, 2013. The program will provide funding during FY13 to 2015 with approximately $5,600,000 expected to be available annually to fund 12 grantees. Applicants may apply for a ceiling amount of $25,000 per county which will be eligible per year. The project period is three years.
For more information, go to www.grants.gov or email CAPT. Valerie A. Darden, Program Coordinator for the Office of Rural Health Policy at Vdarden@hrsa.gov.
