Health services grants to combat secondhand smoke in rural areas

Rural Hoosiers have been given more means to combat secondhand smoke in the workplace and receive advances in health services, thanks to grants awarded to the Indiana Rural Health Association by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission.\nThe FCC has awarded a grant of more than $16 million to the Indiana Telehealth Network as part of the $417 million it spent for the construction of advanced broadband telehealth networks under the Rural Health Care Pilot Program, said Mark Wigfield, a media contact for the FCC. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also gave money for rural health purposes, contributing $50,000 toward lessening secondhand smoke exposure at work. \nWigfield said telehealth applications allow patients to access critically needed medical specialists in a variety of practices, including cardiology, pediatrics and radiology without leaving their homes or communities.\n“The Rural Health Care Pilot Program will improve access to quality health care for rural residents by helping connect health care facilities in rural areas to each other and urban health centers via high-speed broadband networks,” Wigfield said.\nWigfield said the FCC’s role is to help build the networks so rural hospitals and clinics can more effectively serve their patients’ needs, whatever they might be.\nThe Indiana Rural Health Association’s grant seeks to eliminate secondhand smoke in workplaces, said Don Kelso, executive director of the association.\nKelso said the association is forming coalitions with organizations such as the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation to pass smoking ban ordinances in places such as bars and casinos, where employees are frequently exposed to secondhand smoke.\n“Some employees have no choice,” Kelso said. “The only option to avoid secondhand smoke is not working there.”\nKelso said rural areas experience this problem more because those areas are reluctant to make a change. Karla Sneegas, executive director of the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation organization, said she said.\nSneegas said Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation’s main goal is to increase the number of rural smoke-free communities.\n“You see more urban areas smoke-free,” Sneegas said. “It creates a disparity in rural areas.”\nShe said Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation plans to hold public education campaigns to emphasize the importance of the issue to rural Hoosiers, but at this time she does not know where they will be held.\n“It’s an opportunity to bring different organizations together to help,” Sneegas said. “It should result in a positive health reform for Hoosiers.”