HJAR Jan/Feb 2023

36 JAN / FEB 2023  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   Healthcare Briefs Full-time students receiving scholarships are Ciristen Neal of Alexander, Alma Navarrete of Benton, Estefany Soto and Kathryn Armstrong of Conway, Nydia Hernandez of Hamburg, Danna Chaney of Heber Springs, Zharia Harris of Hens- ley, Damaiya Byrd of Hot Springs, and Kierra Wright of Jonesboro. Other full-time student recipients include Gabriel Wilber, Amber Hill, Nabeel Alwan, Breann Hansberry, Skylar West, Brittany Taylor, Jonathan Park, and Andrea Dan- iels of Little Rock; Devan Mishra and India Hayes of Maumelle; Alexis Larkins of Pine Bluff; Lizbeth Cenobio of Springdale; Ashanti Turner of Ste- phens; Rashad Thrower of Texarkana; and Latoya Handy of West Memphis. “There is an ever-increasing gap in minority representation in the health care workforce,” said Kenya Eddings, Arkansas Minority Health Commission executive director. “We are proud of these students who have chosen to pursue a career of service through health care and public health and excited to be able to help them by providing scholarships.” The Minority Health Workforce Diversity Schol- arships are awarded twice per year. Minority stu- dents enrolled in a program of study that leads to or is creditable toward a field in health can apply for the scholarship. Additional information about the scholarship can be found at www.armi- norityhealth.com. Study Addresses Health Needs of Pregnant MarshalleseWomen A University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) research team in Northwest Arkansas will study a potential way to improve health outcomes of pregnant Marshallese women using group- based care and healthcare navigators. Led by UAMS researcher Britni Ayers, PhD, the study of maternal healthcare involving small groups of women, known as CenteringPregnancy, is funded by a two-year, $420,750 grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Pacific Islanders/Marshallese living in the United States have almost twice the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic whites. Arkansas is home to the country’s largest population of Marshallese, about 14,000 residents. Ayers’ preliminary research has found that 15% of Marshallese women in Arkansas received no prenatal care (compared to 1.6% women nation- ally); more than 50% do not attend the recom- mended number of prenatal care visits; 19% of Marshallese infants were born preterm (com- pared to 9.6% nationally); and 15% of Marshal- lese infants were low birthweight (compared to 8.3% nationally). Marshallese women face a number of barriers to medical care, including language, transporta- tion, and lack of information to help navigate the medical system and access resources. “They are fearful of the medical system,” said Ayers, an assistant professor at UAMS Office of Community Health and Research in Springdale. “It’s ubiquitious — Marshallese women have expressed fear of the prenatal care process in all of our focus group interviews.” Ayers hopes her CenteringPregnancy research will show that it is effective and can be used on a larger scale. “Pregnant Marshallese women in Arkansas are experiencing urgent health needs, and we have the potential to move the needle tremendously with this type of concept,” she said. CenteringPregnancy programs have proved effective in other areas of the United States, but it has not been tried with Pacific Islanders/Mar- shallese women. It should be a good fit for the population, Ayers said. “The Marshallese culture is collectivist. They value the group more than the individual, so I think any sort of group health care will be a better way to reach this population,” she said. UAMS Using $2.4Million NIHGrant to Study Tick- borne Relapsing Fever Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will use a new federal grant to study genetic systems of the bacterium that causes tick-borne relapsing fever to better understand their molecular functions and reveal possible drug targets. UAMS’ Jon Blevins, PhD, a professor in the Col- lege of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology, is leading the four-year study funded by a $2.4 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Although they were identified over 100 years ago, scientists know very little about the spiral- shaped bacteria that cause the relapsing fever infection, which develops when bacteria are trans- mitted from ticks into their animal hosts, Blevins said. “Our team now has the ability to answer a lot of questions through the power of molecular genet- ics,” he said, adding that, “UAMS’ state-of-the- art DNA and Next Generation Sequencing Core will play a critical role.” Soft ticks are the primary vectors for tick-borne relapsing fever bacteria, like Borrelia turicatae. While hard ticks can transmit related Borrelia bacteria, these ticks are better known as vectors for other, more common tick-borne infections, including Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. In the United States, tick-borne relapsing fever has been reported in 15 states where soft ticks live: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kan- sas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Okla- homa, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tiffany Padilla, APRN, Joins CHI St. Vincent at Two Locations CHI St. Vincent has announced that Tiffany Padilla, APRN, has joined the team of special- ists at CHI St. Vincent Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine Clinic - Little Rock, located at 1 St. Vin- cent Circle, Suite 210. Padilla, who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the respiratory system, will also see patients at the CHI St. Vincent Multispecialty Clinic - North, located at 2215 Wildwood Ave., Suite 210 in Tiffany Padilla, APRN