Launching Heartland Health Network
Heartland Health Network

Congratulations Dr.’s Goggin, Berkley-Patton and Catley!
UMKC Department of Psychology Researchers

Due to more than a decade of research focused on improving community health and addressing health disparities among African Americans we have received a three-year, 1 million dollar grant from NIH to create Heartland Health Network (HHN).

The grant was awarded through the NIH National Center on Minority Health Disparities Community Based Participatory Research Initiative. Of more than 600 grant proposals submitted from across the nation, UMKC was one of only approximately 30 proposals that were awarded.

HHN is slated to become a coalition of community partners working together to address health disparities by promoting wellness, facilitating health research and the dissemination of effective health intervention within the African American community.

Per Dr. Berkley-Patton, “HHN is really an outgrowth of ongoing research in our department and partnerships and programs that are already in place and working,” Berkley-Patton said. “What makes the formalization of HHN unique is that our community partners will be involved in every stage of the research process – from developing research goals to assisting with implementing research projects and interpreting data. HHN will allow researchers, health care providers and community leaders to work together to find the most effective communication and intervention strategies and translate those strategies into improved health outcomes for patients.”

Along with researchers from the UMKC Department of Psychology, the founding HHN partners are the Calvary Community Outreach Network (CCON) a faith based non-profit and the Kansas City Free Health Clinic (KC Free) a community based health service organization. With these partnerships, the opportunity to reach over 50 percent of the African American population who attend weekly church services and receive health services, the potential impact of this project is significant. The community need is evident when your hear Rev. Eric D. Williams, founder and CEO of the Calvary Community Outreach Network say, “I’m tired of doing funerals that could have been prevented, and we have to broaden our understanding of what a ministry is and what it can do. We need to look at all of the needs that our congregants have and use evidenced based approaches to address them. Working together through the HHN, we have a chance to really make a difference in addressing the health of our community.”

To be learn more about Heartland Health Network visit us at www.heartlandhealthnetwork.org