Pro-Change gets grant to help Alaska Natives

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year research project grant to Pro-Change Behavior Systems to study the effect of disease prevention counseling delivered via telemedicine within rural villages in the Bristol Bay Area of Alaska. Participants will be Alaska Native men and women who smoke cigarettes and have at least one additional cardiovascular disease risk factor (e.g., inactivity, overweight status, hypertension, high cholesterol) or established vascular disease.

The health counseling is guided utilizing Pro-Change’s award-winning computer tailored interventions, which will be customized and hosted for the Alaska Native population. Stage-matched print manuals will also be used as behavior change tools.

The grant is informed by fieldwork over the past six years in rural Alaska, continued community partnerships with the tribes, and ethnographic research. The grant combines technology, pharmacology, behavioral science, and health economics for advancing the health of Alaska Native people who face significant health disparities with limited access to interventions given their isolated locations.

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