Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) April 22, 2008 -- The National Council on Aging (NCOA) is making grants available to eight states to improve access among older adults to the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP).
California, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Wisconsin will receive Sustainable Systems Grants to design and establish systems that lead to statewide access to the best-known, evidence-based self-management program for people with chronic conditions.
The goal of CDSMP is to offer older Americans, who have more chronic conditions than younger persons, an opportunity to take control of their health through behavior changes that have proven effective in reducing the effects of disease and disability.
"There is a large body of scientific evidence that low-cost self-care programs are an effective way to reduce the risk of disease, disability and injury among seniors," said NCOA Senior Vice President Nancy Whitelaw. "These states have demonstrated that they can replicate successful programs and have a strong capacity and commitment to this work, and are ready to work with us to design and establish permanent systems for statewide access to the CDSMP and other evidence-based prevention programs."
According to Whitelaw, NCOA and its partners believe that the overall goal of fostering widespread, nationwide access to the CDSMP and other evidence-based prevention programs will be advanced by supporting these eight states in moving faster and more systematically toward sustained statewide programming, with an emphasis on reaching diverse and vulnerable populations. Strategies and tools that prove successful among these states will be shared so that older adults across the nation can benefit from these valuable programs.
These grants are part of a major evidence-based prevention initiative supported by the Administration on Aging and its federal partners, 27 states and more recently, The Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the last five years, NCOA's Center for Healthy Aging, which Whitelaw directs, has served as the National Technical Assistance and Resource Center to both local and state grantees. Collectively, this initiative includes more than $50,000,000 in philanthropic, local, state, and federal funding to help bring CDSMP and other evidence-based programs to older adults in the United States.
"The CDSMP is a well-tested approach to helping people with chronic conditions care for themselves," said Laura Robbins of The Atlantic Philanthropies. "Most exciting is that CDSMP helps older adults to gain more of what they want -- improved health, increased independence, improved communication with physicians, and fewer visits to physicians and hospitals."
CDSMP was developed by Dr. Kate Lorig and her colleagues at Stanford who have received research support for over 20 years from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institutes on Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has been widely adopted around the world, including in Canada, Australia, and England – where it is a part of the National Health Service.
NCOA's Center for Healthy Aging (www.healthyagingprograms.org ) invited the 24 states receiving the Administration on Aging's Evidence Based Prevention grants to apply for the Sustainable Systems Grants.
The National Council on Aging's mission is to improve the lives of older Americans. NCOA programs help older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, access benefits programs, and discover meaningful ways to continue contributing to society. A charitable organization with a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and leaders, NCOA was founded in 1950 and is based in Washington, DC. For more information about NCOA, please visit: http://www.ncoa.org.
The Atlantic Philanthropies are dedicated to bringing about lasting changes in the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable people. Atlantic focuses on four critical social problems: Ageing, Disadvantaged Children & Youth, Population Health, and Reconciliation & Human Rights. Programmes funded by Atlantic operate in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States and Viet Nam. To learn more, please visit: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org.
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