$11 Million UM Grant to Help Improve the Health of All Montanans

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The University of Montana recently received a grant worth $11.5 million to create a research center to improve Montanans’ health.

I spoke with UM Director of Strategic Communications Dave Kuntz about the grant that will create the Montana Clinical and Translational Research Center.

$11.5 Million to Create a New Health Research Center at UM

“It’s a great opportunity that arose through our College of Health, and specifically through Tony Ward, who's a very successful and decorated faculty member here at the university, to really expand the ability for the College of Health to help eliminate some of the health care gaps that exist across our state,” began Kuntz. “This $11 million will really help to expand opportunities for our students and our graduate students, for the research they're in that college partnered with clinical operations across the state and into the hands of patients to make for a healthier state.”

Kuntz described some of the benefits of the grant.

“Some of these opportunities will include the public health research that we're doing, which includes everything from wildfire smoke to the impacts of how isolation in rural areas leads to health disparities,” he said. “We're also going to look at other pressing issues, such as mental health and suicide and cardiovascular disease and respiratory problems related to some of that smoke.”

Some Funds Will Help With Respiratory Problems from Wildfire Smoke

He said the research and cooperation enabled by the grant will reach across the entire state.

“By partnering with these clinics across the state, which include clinics in Missoula, Helena and Billings we'll be able to take some of that research that that Tony and his team have done such a good job with and really bring it to the bedside healthcare delivery that's so needed in our state, and hopefully help deliver some better health outcomes,” he said.

Kuntz looked forward to some future results from the grant.

Results of the Grant Will be Better Health Outcomes for Montanans

“Here in the years ahead, what success is going to look like is taking some of their high-level research, partnering with some of our students here at the College of Health, and then using that research, not just in an academic setting and in published papers, but really working with the doctors and the PA’s (Physician Assistants) across Montana, through All Nations Health or Providence Health, or Shodair Children's Hospital in Helena to take that research and really put it into a clinical perspective so patients can start seeing better outcomes,” he said.

The grant from the National Institutes of Health will start by funding up to five research projects a year.