Tuesday, September 17, 2024
9/17/2024
Alaska is a frontier state with a sparse population that faces unusual healthcare needs, disparities, and reduced access to care due to a variety of challenges such as geography, weather, and transportation. Many of these challenges are not experienced in states that have large urban communities connected by roads, trains and other means of ground transportation. Eighteen percent of the state’s population lives in communities with fewer than 2,500 residents. Looking at hypertension and heart disease diagnoses, and years of potential life lost, there appear to be significant gaps in outcomes between populations, likely due in part to differences in healthcare seeking behaviors and access to primary care providers. Currently, our Self Measured Blood Pressure (SMBP) programs are not reaching the populations with the highest cardiovascular disease burdens at appropriate rates. For example, men had double the years of potential life lost due to cardiovascular disease compared to women. We will work to reduce these gaps by targeting our strategies towards men and minoritized racial groups. For this reason, the CDPHP proposals attached will focus heavily on bridging these gaps through both expanded access as well as cultural tailoring, community liaison work, and equipping the cardiovascular care workforce to identify and address SDOH needs within their communities. It is our goal to use increased cultural tailoring, diversity of access methods, cultural liaison collaboration and SDOH resources and tools to address these identified gaps and decrease the burden of cardiovascular disease within all populations in the State of Alaska.
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).
