A project focused on improving health equity in Indianapolis was awarded a $5 million grant to expand the efforts to improve health in three neighborhoods whose residents experience higher-than-average rates of diabetes.
The Diabetes Impact Project (DIP-IN) started in 2018 by Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI) with an initial $7 million grant from Eli Lilly and Co. In September 2021, Eli Lilly continued support for the project with an additional $5 million which will fund an expansion of DIP-IN. The project works with three neighborhoods in Indianapolis where the life expectancy for residents (83% of whom are people of color) is more than 16 years lower than average and the prevalence of diabetes is five percent greater than in Indianapolis as a whole and eleven percent greater than the world average, according to a news release from IUPUI.
DIP-IN serves neighborhoods in three zip codes in Indianapolis by improving access to healthy food and health care while also addressing high levels of stress and promoting physical activity, working with partner organizations like the Fay Biccard Glick Crooked Creek Neighborhood Center and Eskenazi Health. Dr. Dawn Haut, CEO of Eskenazi Health Center said, "Diabetes is one of the most serious health challenges our community faces, and everyone at Eskenazi Health appreciates Lilly's generosity in helping us battle this terrible disease through funding of the Diabetes Impact Project. We're confident that this ground-breaking initiative will contribute greatly in reducing the number of individuals with diabetes and reduce the health inequity among Black and Brown people in our community."
Principal investigator and associate professor at IUPUI Lisa Staten said in the news release that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted people of color. Data from the Regenstrief Institute show that while 3.7% of positive cases in Marion County between March 1 and September 1, 2020, almost 16% of hospitalizations from COVID-19 were patients with diabetes. "The pandemic has disproportionately affected people of color, and we do not yet know the scale of how life expectancy will be affected," Staten said. "This expanded funding from Lilly will allow us to continue working in partnership with the neighborhoods to develop effective and sustainable local solutions for diabetes prevention and control and ultimately improve health equity."
Tiffany Benjamin, senior director of social impact for Lilly and president of the Lilly Foundation, said in the news release from IUPUI, "In addition to the high prevalence of diabetes and alarming life expectancy gap, COVID-19 has added an unacceptable burden to Black and Brown communities in Indianapolis. With the launch of Lilly's Racial Justice Initiative last year, we are even more committed to identifying and eliminating the institutional and societal barriers that keep our neighbors from living long and healthy lives."
The grant to expand DIP-IN will lengthen the project by an additional three years and work with community partners to achieve the goal of reducing the rates of diabetes in the communities that the program serves. A strong focus will be on prevention strategies. Patrice Duckett-Brown, executive director of Fay Biccard Glick Crooked Creek Neighborhood Center, explained, "This expansion of the DIP-IN grant does more than provide additional services to our community. This grant expansion focuses on prevention from an equity lens. The new grant provides our community with additional support but an abundance of leverage to change how we view our own health and address long-term barriers that narrate health disparities within our community."