The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has awarded a five-year, $2.9 million grant to Yale to fund a Prevention Research Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut. The goal of the program is to merge the resources of the School of Medicine and Griffin Hospital to focus on improving the health of the six-town Naugatuck Valley community and its 96,000 residents. The grant is one of 19 university-coordinated Prevention Research Centers funded today by the CDC.
In addition to conducting prevention research, the center will take the work done by Healthy Valley 2000 -- a four-year-old healthy community initiative -- as well as the Valley Council of Health and Human Service Organizations and Griffin Health Services to the next stage. That coalition is seeking to promote health and disease prevention goals envisioned by community leaders and laid out in the national "Healthy People 2000" initiative.
Dr. Michael Merson, dean of public health and chair of the department of epidemiology and public health, said: "Since the last turn of the century, our average life span has increased about 35 years. Thirty of those years of life gained are a result of prevention programs -- programs that prevent deaths from diseases of infancy, infectious diseases of childhood and chronic diseases in adults.
"We are delighted to be establishing this new Prevention Research Center with our colleagues at Griffin Hospital. We have worked closely with them in their preventive medicine residency program and recognize their strong commitment to public health. This new center has great potential for improving the health of the population living in the lower Naugatuck Valley."
The grant will have three phases. In phase one, the focus will be on cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the Naugatuck Valley community. Phase-one initiatives include interventions for smoking cessation and obesity management, the impact of cardiac screening programs on behavior change in women, and the effects of case management and home-based exercise on patients with congestive heart failure.
In phase two, new priorities will be chosen based on the research and the priorities established by a Community Advisory Committee co-chaired by Karen Spargo, executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Health District, and Jack Walsh, executive director of the Naugatuck Valley United Way. The Community Advisory Committee will collaborate with the center staff, faculty, community leaders and citizens in identifying needs and recommending initiatives to improve health in the Valley towns of Ansonia, Derby, Shelton, Seymour, Oxford and Beacon Falls.
Every initiative undertaken will have a Community Action Team. The CAT Teams will include community members and will target a public health priority of the population while working collaboratively across diverse constituencies. Phase three -- year five of the grant -- will be devoted to evaluation of results and institutionalization of successful programs.