Grant Program Enables USM Nursing Faculty, Students to Help Underserved Patients

This is a press release from the University of Southern Mississippi.

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - A grant made possible through the Asbury Foundation Distinguished Professor in Nursing fund is helping University of Southern Mississippi nursing faculty and students provide healthcare to an under-served area of Hattiesburg.

Elizabeth Tinnon, assistant professor in the USM College of Nursing, is coordinating the grant project in partnership with the University’s Institute for Disability Studies. Tinnon and nursing students are lending assistance to the Fellowship Health Clinic (FHC), located on Edwards Street in southeast Hattiesburg. The clinic provides high quality medical, dental, and pharmaceutical care at no cost to eligible uninsured and underinsured residents of Forrest and Lamar counties.

“I chose to team up with FHC because they serve a population that is often marginalized and have limited or no resources,” said Tinnon, the current Asbury Foundation Distinguished Professor in Nursing. “This population can’t afford the supplies we are providing them. Everyone that we have enrolled in the program so far has been extremely grateful and expressed that they were unable to afford these basic supplies – supplies necessary for them to manage their chronic illnesses.”

Tinnon cites Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics showing that 50 percent of the U.S. population (approximately 162 million) has at least one chronic disease and 25 percent has two or more. According to the CDC, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes are among the most common and costly.