The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) and the Indiana State Department of Health have formed a new partnership to improve health in Indiana. This alliance will unite the state’s health coalition work with that of the Indiana CTSI, a partnership among Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame, in shared efforts to build community health partnerships across the state.
The alliance is led by the Indiana CTSI’s Community Health Partnerships program, which seeks to improve health in Indiana through community-university partnerships and community-based health research. Community Health Partnerships’ coalition-building efforts are already integrated across almost every county in Indiana through Purdue Extension, which is involved in more than 60 health coalitions and has extension educators in all 92 counties in the state.
Health coalitions involve both formal and informal groups of people working together to improve one or more aspects of health, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, healthy weight and asthma. They are a powerful tool for helping to change health behavior in a community, said Dennis Savaiano, PhD, associate director of and Purdue liaison for Community Health Partnerships and Virginia Claypool Meredith Professor of Nutrition Policy at Purdue.
“The Indiana CTSI’s Community Health Partnerships program has worked for the last 10 years to affect real change in communities by building partnerships of common interest and common mission,” said Savaiano, who will lead the health coalition project for the Indiana CTSI. “By uniting our efforts with the Indiana State Department of Health, coalition members will have more opportunities to improve health in their communities. This is a great opportunity for us to work together to extend and expand our state’s existing health coalition work to benefit even more Indiana residents.”
Ann Alley, director of the Chronic Disease, Primary Care and Rural Health Division at the Indiana State Department of Health, said the state chose to work with the Indiana CTSI because of the Institute’s history of success in building strong relationships between its partner universities and various community members and organizations.
“We cannot overstate the importance of partnerships as we tackle the most pressing health issues of our state,” Alley said. “We look forward to seeing measurable improvement now within reach thanks to the Indiana CTSI and our local champions.”
Interested in joining Community Health Partnerships’ network? Please fill out a health coalition interest survey form: http://go.iu.edu/27QG.
About the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute
The Indiana CTSI brings together the state’s brightest minds to solve Indiana’s most pressing health challenges through research. It is a statewide partnership among Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Notre Dame and numerous life sciences businesses, government entities and community organizations. The Indiana CTSI engages with the public at every level of research—from basic science to patient care. It has been continuously funded by multimillion dollar grants from the National Institutes of Health since the Indiana CTSI’s founding in 2008 and is housed at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
