Faculty to Evaluate Legacy Partnerships for Healthier Communities

Regents Professor Kenneth McLeroy, Ph.D., of the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health has been awarded $375,403 from the American Legacy Foundation to evaluate “Legacy Partnerships for Healthier Communities.”

Co-principal investigators include school faculty members Brian Colwell, Ph.D., associate professor, and Monica Wendel, Dr.P.H., assistant professor, along with Corliss Outley, Ph.D., assistant professor at Texas A&M University.

“This is an exciting opportunity for us to be working with the Legacy Foundation, established through the U.S. tobacco settlement, in the evaluation of tobacco use prevention projects in West Virginia, Louisiana and Oklahoma,” Dr. McLeroy said. “These projects have considerable potential to reduce tobacco use rates among pregnant women and youth in their locales, and the Legacy Foundation is providing technical support and training to the projects. Our role is to evaluate the effectiveness of the projects and to provide feedback to Legacy in order to improve the effectiveness of the technical assistance.”

The study will continue through December 2013.