Grant will allow WSU Spokane to help area neighborhoods

Students working and learning at the Spokane Teaching Health Clinic – opening in summer of 2016 – will work with local neighborhoods. 

Health impacts due to poor living conditions can have lasting consequences, and children especially shouldn’t have to suffer.

A $100,000 grant from the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund will help WSU Spokane identify and reduce health risks in the homes of area residents.

Officially called the “University-Community Partnership to Reduce Children’s Health Disparities,” the initiative is the idea of Patricia Butterfield, a professor in the WSU College of Nursing. Butterfield has previous experience researching living conditions and their impacts on health.

“Our previous research, conducted in Montana and western Washington, reduced health risks to children by focusing on their living conditions and homes,” she said in a WSU news release. “Now that work will take root in Spokane neighborhoods.”

WSU Spokane faculty and students in the Spokane Teaching Health Clinic will work with families and assess the health risks in their homes, with the aim at reducing those health risks. Students in pharmacy, nursing, medical sciences and more will work together in an interdisciplinary manner in this initiative. WSU Spokane will also work alongside the Spokane Regional Health District, neighborhood organizations, local schools and the Global to Local program.

Think of your current home or a home you lived in as a child. Was there mold on or in the walls? Have you had your home’s radon levels measured?

This grant will allow for research and engagement to help create a healthier community.