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EMPOWERED Program

Enhancing Minority Partnership Opportunities; Working to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Through the State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health program, EMPOWERED provides health education-based initiatives focusing on decreasing obesity, decreasing infant mortality, increasing the number of minority mothers who breastfeed, and improving access to smoking cessation opportunities.

In an effort to promote healthier lifestyles among Indiana's minority adolescents, young adults, and adults, the program's overall focus is to improve personal health behaviors among members of these groups 

The 2015-2020 State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health allows the Indiana State Department of Health-Office of Minority Health (ISDH-OMH) to help the agency and its statewide partners collaborate to advance outreach efforts of and educational opportunities that will improve the health status of Hoosiers.

Objective 1) Provide a peer-education-based intervention to decrease the rate of infant mortality among African American adolescents and women of child bearing age. Indiana continues to rank among the states with a high infant mortality rate. The OMH has adapted the Healthy Before Pregnancy curriculum to help address this issue. Understanding the importance data, EMPOWERED will measure success through pre and post test methods.

Objective 2) Provide outreach and empowerment to educate racial and ethnic minorities on the importance of breastfeeding and how it affects infant mortality. Utilizing educational materials and presentations produced by the Indiana Black Breast Feeding Coalition, EMPOWERED will continue to measure success with pre and post test methods.

Objective 3) Provide interventions to focus on the improvement of nutritional and physical active health behaviors leading to decreased rates of obesity among racial and ethnic minority adults. The current curriculum is Eat Healthy, Be Active! It is adapted from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Measure of success is through conducting the and pre and post test.

Objective 4) Eliminate health disparities related to tobacco use among minorities and emphasize tobacco prevention and cessation among minorities and pregnant women by promoting the Indiana Tobacco Quitline.

The three hotspots chosen for this initiative are Lake, Marion, and Allen Counties.