FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                               

For more information, contact:

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Sheila Champlin – (901) 448-4957, schampli@uthsc.edu or

Dena Owens – (901) 448-4072, dowens10@uthsc.edu

 

 

Associate Professor Junling Wang of

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

 Receives $886,742 Grant to Further Medication Therapy Management Research

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            Memphis, Tenn. (September 27, 2011) – Junling Wang, PhD, associate professor of Health Outcomes and Policy Research in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), has received a grant totaling $886,742 from the National Institute on Aging, a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health.  The award will be used to further her study on medication therapy management (MTM) and its effects on racial and ethnic disparities.  The award will be funded over a three-year period for the study titled, “Health Implications of MTM Eligibility Criteria.”

 The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act -- implemented in 2006 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- requires prescription drug plans for Medicare beneficiaries to establish MTM programs with a purpose to “optimize therapeutic outcomes by improving medication use and reducing adverse events.”  However, Dr. Wang and her team’s recently published analyses of historical data demonstrate that racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to be eligible for MTM than Caucasians.

“Our long-term goal for this project is to determine the types of government policies and congressional legislation that can reduce disparities,” said Dr. Wang. “To understand the health implications of MTM eligibility criteria for minorities, we will determine whether the racial and ethnic disparities in health status, health services utilization and costs, and medication utilization patterns among MTM-eligible individuals are different from the disparities among MTM-ineligible individuals.”

 This research proves important because significant differences among MTM-ineligible individuals would suggest that the MTM eligibility criteria have the potential to aggravate racial and ethnic differences.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.  For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

As the flagship statewide academic health system, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is to bring the benefits of the health sciences to the achievement and maintenance of human health, with a focus on the citizens of Tennessee and the region, by pursuing an integrated program of education, research, clinical care, and public service.  In 2011, UT Health Science Center celebrates its centennial: 100 years advancing the future of health care.  Offering a broad range of postgraduate training opportunities, the main UTHSC campus is located in Memphis and includes six colleges: Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.  The UTHSC campus in Knoxville includes a College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy, and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  In addition, the UTHSC Chattanooga campus includes a College of Medicine and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  Since its founding in 1911, UTHSC has educated and trained more than 53,000 health care professionals on campuses and in health care facilities across the state.  For more information, visit www.uthsc.edu.

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