Health promotion mini-grants: grassroots implementation in New Mexico

The populations of New Mexico are ethnically diverse, with large Hispanic and Native American components, and live in communities that are geographically dispersed and economically challenged. The University of New Mexico is located in Albuquerque, the state's only major urban area, and houses the state's only academic health sciences center. In 1986, the University received a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to establish health promotion/disease prevention curricula for health science students and create two Wellness Centers on campus. The Wellness Centers train students to be providers of health information and learn how to counsel and assist people with changing health-related behaviors. A campus-wide employee health promotion program was also implemented. Most of the instructional and service programs initiated by the grant have continued with stable institutional support. A later phase of the project was to encourage other agencies and organizations throughout New Mexico to adopt or expand their own health promotion initiatives. An operating premise of this phase was that local initiatives should respond to locally perceived priorities. To accomplish this, a program of mini-grants was designed to assist in creating health promotion programs within a variety of topic areas. Thirteen mini-grants were awarded to agencies representing diverse groups and cultures throughout New Mexico. Our experience with the mini-grants and the ability of organizations to sustain the activities past the period of grant support are described. The successful use of mini-grants has been reported elsewhere in the literature.