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The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine announced Tuesday that it had been awarded nearly $2.3 million to establish the area’s first Maternal Health Research Center.
The medical school will receive a grant totaling $2,275,863 for the center thanks to the grant, which was awarded by the Maternal Health Research Network for Minority Serving Institutes-Research Awards via the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The new center will be among 16 institutes serving minority populations across the country.
For Dr. Candace Robledo, associate professor for the School of Medicine and principal investigator for the grant, UTRGV can address maternal health needs in the Valley due to the funding.
“This grant will allow us to build our capacity to conduct research to address health disparities in maternal health outcomes and help design and inform community-based solutions to address these disparities,” Robledo said in a university news release. “It will help advance health equity across the Rio Grande Valley.”
According to UTRGV, the medical school has for around eight years also focused on mental health access and parity through an integration model called Primary Care Behavioral Health, or PCBH.
Throughout that time, UTRGV has applied for funds to address maternal health in the Valley through this model. With the center, now the model will be applied to the community through promotoras, community health workers who provide health care access to the Valley’s colonias.
Robledo explained in the release that the center will help physicians better understand why women in the Valley are more prone to negative health outcomes than other areas in the state.
“We suspect that depression, anxiety and other behavioral factors are to blame,” Robledo said. “We hope to adopt an integrated behavioral healthcare approach to be delivered in community settings by promotoras to help us meet those needs and address those challenges.”
For Dr. Michael B. Hocker, senior vice president for UT Health RGV, the grant will help physicians better understand the behavioral factors that affect pregnancy-related complications.
“It is an underserved region, where health disparities and adverse outcomes – such as preterm and low birthweight births – persist for Hispanic women,” Hocker said in the release.
UTRGV did not say in the release where the center will be located.
However, the university did explain that the center will focus on planning, coordinating and generating evidence to build on research and treatment in its first year, creating a full-service center that will help improve maternal health for women in South Texas.
