Healthy together

Blue Cross Foundation Awards Grants Focused on Reducing Health Disparities

Monday November 14, 3:35 pm ET
EAGAN, Minn., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ --

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation announces $936,000 in grants under its new initiative Healthy Together: Creating Community with New Americans. Healthy Together is a statewide initiative to promote good health among Minnesota's immigrant populations. It builds on the Foundation's grantmaking experience to help people with unique cultural needs navigate the health care system.

Healthy Together is the first of four Blue Cross Foundation strategic initiatives that address root causes of health disparities in the state. The first group of grants for 2005 focuses on three areas -- mental health and social adjustment, capacity building for immigrant-led organizations and exchanges between immigrants and the receiving community.

"While Minnesota is consistently named one of the healthiest states in the nation, many Minnesotans don't share that health -- particularly people of color, new Americans and people living in poverty," said Daniel Johnson, executive director of the Foundation. "Through Healthy Together, we can begin to create change that will enable us to truly call Minnesota the healthiest state in the nation."

Recent grants include:
Mental Health and Social Adjustment
-- Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Pelican Rapids, $25,000 to
promote replication of its successful immigrant integration model into
other communities.