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February 8, 2010

Health dept. receives $400K grant

Will help Whitley office provide for pregnant women

Times-Tribune Staff Report

The Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded the Whitley County Health Department a $400,000 grant to help families and pregnant women access vital health care services.

That money will help fund the Voices of Appalachia Healthy Start program, said Gail Timperio, Director of the Whitley County Health Department. “They visit pregnant women and mothers of children ages three and under.”

“Statewide and across the nation, the United States has one of the highest rates of premature birth in the industrialized world,” Timperio added. “As bad as the nationwide premature birth rate is, Kentucky’s rate is even worse... With our health care system, we should be among the best, but around 25 percent of our pregnant women in Whitley County are smokers.”

According to a statement from U.S. Congressman Hal Rogers’ office, the Healthy Start program provides outreach, case management, depression screening and referral, health education, interconceptional care, and enabling services, and the objectives of the program are to reduce the high infant mortality rates, assure early and ongoing prenatal care, provide health education services, offer depression screenings, and link young mothers to community support resources.

“It links them to the needed services in the community. And really the voices of Appalachia Healthy Start is one of only two in Kentucky,” Timperio added. The other Healthy Start program serves the Louisville Metro area.

“Any pregnant woman or family with children under age three in Whitley County are eligible,” Timperio said. “The program is not income-based at all. If any physicians would like to make referrals or for anybody interested in the program, they can call 549-9296.”

Voices of Appalachia Healthy Start was recently featured in a KET documentary named Born Too Soon, which is scheduled to air again Tuesday.

Timperio said the Whitley health department began receiving this grant in 1997 and the department will continue applying for this grant in the future. She said this most recent award is “part of a new grant funding cycle, which opens the door for us for the next five years to get $400,000 per year… so that could be two million dollars in all.”

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