The Arkansas Minority Health Commission has designed a new grant program aimed at fighting HIV/AIDS among minority populations at a local level.

The commission will begin offering up to $150,000 in grants this year for community-based groups that work to educate people about HIV/AIDS, offer testing and services, or develop policies, Wynona Bryant-Williams, the commission's executive director said. She added that commission officials "really want to be more proactive" in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Applications for individual grants -- which range from $15,000 to $50,000 -- are due by Feb. 6, and the awards will be announced in March. Creshelle Nash, the commission's medical director who also is a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Public Health and a physician at the UAMS Medical Center, said the commission is "looking for partners, we are looking for collaborators because minority health is everyone's health."

The Democrat-Gazette reports that about 7,375 HIV/AIDS cases have been reported in Arkansas in the past 25 years, with 44% of them occurring among black and Hispanic populations. About 15.6% of the state's population is black and 5% is Hispanic.

Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/15/09