Indiana has tasked its rural counties to identify ways that improve health outcomes, and it’s offering to foot the bill.
Dan Burk, director of the Wayne County Health Department, explained the new funding opportunity to the county’s Board of Health during its April 14 meeting. The state’s Growing Rural Opportunities for Well-being initiative will use $207 million this year from the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. GROW is a five-year program.
The funding is designed to address chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke and smoking; maternal and child health, including infant mortality, low birth weight, preterm birth and lack of prenatal care; trauma and injury prevention, focusing on falls, motor vehicle crashes, traumatic brain injury, overdoses, opioid prescribing and suicide; emergency department use; life expectancy; medical workforce; and drive time to medical resources.
The state divided its rural and partially rural counties into eight regions that will receive funding. Wayne County was assigned to Region 4 with Fayette, Henry, Union, Randolph, Jay, Blackford, Grant, Tipton and Madison counties.
Burk said many of the objectives align with the Health First Indiana key performance indicators. Regions will develop plans and submit funding applications by July 1. Funding distributions will be awarded Sept. 1 to the regions, then passed to counties.
Health board member Amanda Mullins, who is involved with the regional effort, said regions are expected to identify gaps in care and ways to expand services, then develop a cohesive application.
Burk said Region 4 has discussed creating community health worker positions in each county to act as navigators who connect recently released jail inmates to needed services. He said switching to Reid Health’s medical records system would enhance the ability to connect any patient to services.
Burk will provide further updates after the region decides how it will proceed.
New member
The board welcomed Sharrie Harlin as its new member, replacing Sabrina Pennington.
Harlin is a Richmond native who returned to the city about 20 years ago after time in Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. She is community engagement manager at Reid Health.
“I love what I do, and I get a chance to work with a lot of different people,” Harlin said.
Other issues
- The health department has already received reports of 43 animal bites this year. Chad Kircher, the environmental deputy director, said the bites were mostly by dogs, but also included a couple from raccoons and several from cats.
- Burk said a change in food truck registry will cost the health department income beginning next year. The county currently collects $150 per food truck regardless where the truck’s state-required commissary is located. The state will begin charging $400, keeping $200 and distributing $200 to the truck commissary’s county. Burk said the department will gain $50 from about 25 trucks, but completely lose funding from 20 to 30 others.
- The health department began March 2 providing out-of-county birth and death certificates. Burk said that after a slow start, the department has made more than $1,200 from those certificates.
A version of this article appeared in the April 22 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.