FRANKFORT — An $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will help fund a University of Kentucky program to increase the scope and impact of public health education in Kentucky.

        The program, called Health Education through Extension Leadership (HEEL), will be a collaboration between the College of Medicine's Kentucky School of Public Health and the College of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service, which provides staff in all 120 Kentucky counties.

        Most extension offices throughout Kentucky already offer education and information on many subjects in the areas of agriculture and health services.

        The new program should enhance extension agents' abilities to deliver health and wellness information statewide, University of Kentucky President Lee Todd said.

        “We want to provide a link that's been missing between the research and academics of the university and the health issues of the people of the commonwealth,” Mr. Todd said Friday.

        “It does no good to do research in the field of health and wellness just for publication sake. That information has to get to the people, and the extension agents we already have in place are some of the best ambassadors this university has to make that information available.”

        Statistics have long shown Kentucky has abnormally high incidences of death related to can cers, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory disease.

        The aim of the new program will be to spread information about advances in the prevention and treatment of these illnesses.

        “We're all about the promotion of healthy lifestyles,” said Betty Overly, family consumer science agent for the Bourbon County Extension Office.

        “We do things every month in Bourbon County to educate people that these illnesses are a major problem in our state. The more we alert people about the incidence of the problems and risk involved, the more likely they might be to quit smoking, get a blood test or mammogram or start exercising more — in effect, living a lifestyle more conducive to better health.”

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