MILWAUKEE, WI – The Wisconsin Center for Nursing receives $50,000 Award to Advance Health Equity Through Nursing. One of 16 Recipients Nationwide of AARP & RWJF Health Equity Innovations Fund Awards and one of two Wisconsin Organizations, The other Maquette University whose grant focuses on the recruitment and retention of Latinos into nursing..
The awards from the AARP Center for Health Equity through NursingSM and the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), are for projects offering promising solutions aimed at eliminating structural inequities, particularly structural racism, within the nursing profession, health systems, or community, and for projects that help improve access to care and services for those most disproportionately impacted by health disparities. The 16 projects support the advancement of one or more of the recommendations in the National Academy of Medicine report, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity.
The Center’s grant Strengthening a Statewide Volunteer Nurse Corp to better address the needs of Vulnerable Populations during Public health Emergencies goals are: 1. Educationally Strengthen the Volunteer Wisconsin Nurse Corp (WEAVR) by providing knowledge to address Public Health Emergencies through a health equity lens. 2. Establish a permanent Nursing Statewide Health Emergencies Advisory Committee. This Advisory Committee will be charged with bridging informational gaps and guiding nursing response with emphasis on public health and health equity.
The 16 winning projects are from: California (3), the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland (2), Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin (2) and West Virginia.
WCN President, Erika Colón states that “Structural racism is pervasive within the nation’s health and health care systems, and despite progress, still poses significant barriers to health and wellbeing for far too many. Additionally, health and wealth disparities disproportionately affect people of color, as well as older Americans, women, people with low-income, those with disabilities, those from LGBTQ communities, and those who live in isolated rural communities”.