Thursday, March 20, 2025
3/20/2025
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) citizens have a history of poorer health status when compared to all other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. AI/ANs collectively have a life expectancy 5.5 years less than all races in the U.S. population. In the 2017 U.S. census estimates, Oklahoma had the second largest AI/AN population at 527,282, with nearly a million (922,937) in the three-state area (Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas). American Indians make a substantial contribution to the culture, health, and economic prosperity of Oklahoma and surrounding states. Even so, the health outcomes of American Indians in the area lags behind the general population in many important socio-economic metrics and in a region where the general population is habitually near the bottom in a variety of health outcome measures, such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and stroke. The SPTHB, established in 1972, is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The SPTHB provides a unified voice for federally recognized Indian tribes in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas, and has a mission of improving the health and quality of life for Native American people through cultural-based advocacy, education, outreach, and collaboration. The SPTHB has a well-established, successful history of grant, project, and outreach management; furthermore, the SPTHB has established and maintained a credible reputation and a network of partnerships composed of individuals and organizations at local, county, state, and national levels. This cadre of collaborations spans the multiple sectors necessary to influence change in various health areas, including behaviors contributing to heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. The purpose of this program is to provide tribes and tribal servicing organization in both rural and urban areas of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas with the leadership, stewardship, technical assistance, training, and resources necessary to assist in reducing rates of death and disability across the lifespan from commercial tobacco use, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and reduce the prevalence of obesity and other chronic disease risk factors and conditions. The SPTHB shall assist in this effort collaborating with multiple tribes and tribal organizations, Component 1 and 3 awardees, and sub-awardees to: Increase physical activity with an emphasis on walking; Reduce prevalence of commercial tobacco use; Reduce incidence of type 2 diabetes; Reduce prevalence of high blood pressure/high blood cholesterol; Increased education on stroke prevention; Increased purchasing of healthier foods. The intended outcomes of this program is to award at least six sub-awards using at least 50% of our annual award to focus on implementing evidence-informed and culturally-adapted strategies to improve the health of tribal communities and to prevent chronic diseases and risk factors. Our strategies are to prevent obesity and control commercial tobacco use and exposure. Our community-clinical linkage strategies are to prevent type 2 diabetes and prevent heart disease and stroke. Additionally, we will provide training, technical assistance, and evaluation support to all Tribes, Tribal serving organizations and urban Indian organizations in the Southern Plains area with remaining award funds. The second group will be selected by a competitive process in which sub-awardees will be selected and reviewed by an independent selection committee. We will use a competitive RFP process with a scoring system to select the top three sub-awardees. We determined, again based on previous experience with GHWIC, that opening opportunities for less experienced tribal partners and organizations increased our ability to better use this funding opportunity as intended and broaden our approach in more rural tribal communities. We have developed a list of potential project that includes only recommended practices from the CDC Community Guide (www.thecommunityguide.org).
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).