LOUISVILLE, KY – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that the University of Kentucky has received a $2.8 million competitive grant which will allow UK to establish a Rural Health Research Center. The funding, which will provide $700,000 a year for the four years of the program, was awarded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s Rural Health Research Center Cooperative Agreement grant program.

“I was pleased to work with the University of Kentucky to support this important proposal,” Senator McConnell said. “The funding will be used by students and faculty at UK to research ways to address key health care issues negatively impacting individuals in rural areas of Kentucky. The research conducted at the center will look at ways to reduce cost and strengthen access to rural health networks and methods to help rural physicians treat substance abuse and mental health disorders.”

“I very much appreciate and thank Senator McConnell for his support of our newly funded Rural Health Research Center,” said Dr. Tyrone Borders, Ph.D., Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky Endowed Chair in Rural Health Policy. “The award will enable us to identify effective means of improving health services and population health in Appalachia and other underserved rural areas of the U.S.”