The 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data set is now publicly available. The BRFSS reaches participants on both landline and cellular telephones, collecting information on health risk behaviors, clinical preventive health practices, and health care access. The survey includes a representative sample of noninstitutionalized adults aged 18 years or older in each survey area. Understanding these data can provide important public-health insights into disparity, access, and reach.

Click here to learn more.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) State Director for Rural Development-Pennsylvania Bob Morgan announced that Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc., would receive USDA funding through the Empowering Rural America (New Era) program. Together, New ERA and other investments in rural clean energy in the President’s Inflation Reduction Act make up the largest investment in rural electrification since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law in 1936 as part of the New Deal.  This announcement includes more than $7.3 billion in financing for 16 rural electric cooperatives in rural communities across the country.

“Rural communities are driving positive change in America,” Morgan said. “Through the New ERA program, rural communities are leading the way toward a greener and more prosperous future, ensuring a better quality of life for families and a healthier planet for all.”

The New ERA investment will help Allegheny Electric Cooperative add significant carbon-free resources to its generation portfolio. Their innovative project will help serve energy needs in rural portions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, while reducing the carbon footprint of Allegheny and its 14-member electric distribution cooperatives.

New ERA funding will allow Allegheny to meet over 80 percent of its power requirements from carbon-free resources by 2026 and reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 100,000 tons annually. This proposal will reduce greenhouse gas pollution at a level equivalent of removing 22,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road annually. The opportunity to invest in clean energy resources makes Allegheny one of the most carbon-free generation and transmission cooperatives in America.

“We’re excited to be considered a selectee for New ERA funding,” said Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association and Allegheny Electric Cooperative, Inc. President and CEO Steve Brame. “As the generation provider for 14 electric distribution cooperatives, Allegheny’s job is to deliver a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of energy to our member systems and the rural communities they serve. Through the support of New ERA funding, our proposed project has the benefit of adding zero-emissions resources to our generation portfolio – while keeping energy costs down for these cooperative communities.”

The full announcement is available here: national news release.

Five new Appalachian Regional Commission ARISE grants drive multi-state collaboration to transform the regional economy.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced $16.9 million in funding for five collaborative projects to expand the region’s infrastructure, tourism, business development and workforce opportunities. Funded through ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE), these projects bring together more than 60 partners representing at least 270 counties across 10 Appalachian states—including one of Appalachia’s federally recognized Tribal Communities—to drive large-scale economic transformation. ARISE grantees announced today include:

• $8,000,000 to Save the Children Federation, Inc. to grow the region’s childcare and early education workforce in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia through training, credentialing, apprenticeships and technical assistance.
• $4,500,000 to the Beneficial Electrification League to modernize electric utility grid infrastructure in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
• $3,889,964 to the Appalachian Investors Alliance to establish micro-venture and angel funds for entrepreneurs and small businesses, and launch the Appalachian Venture Foundry to prepare businesses for investments, in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia.
• $500,000 to Carnegie Mellon University to plan for the expansion of job skills matching and career support services in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
• $72,219 to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council to plan for improved trail connectivity to boost tourism in Pennsylvania and New York, including the Seneca Nation of Indians.

Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin announced the awards during ARC’s 2024 Annual Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was joined by ARC’s 2024 States’ Co-Chair Governor Bill Lee and 600 federal, state and community leaders from across the 13-state Appalachian Region.

“By combining multi-state collaboration with innovative partnerships, ARC’s ARISE projects serve as models for how we can work as one, united Appalachia to maximize economic growth,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. “I congratulate our newest ARISE grantees and am proud to have announced them in the presence of many of our federal, state, and local partners at ARC’s annual conference. I have no doubt that these ARISE projects—which include both planning and implementation grants—will build on previous successes and result in greater opportunities for our Appalachian people and communities.”

With today’s package, ARC has invested $88.2 million in 34 ARISE projects to support the development of new economic opportunities across all 13 Appalachian states.

Made possible through support from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, ARISE drives large-scale, regional economic transformation through collaborative multi-state projects.

To learn more about the new ARISE grantees, visit www.arc.gov/grants-and-opportunities/arise/arise-project-summaries/.

About the Appalachian Regional Commission
The Appalachian Regional Commission is an economic development entity of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 423 counties across the Appalachian Region. ARC’s mission is to innovate, partner, and invest to build community capacity and strengthen economic growth in Appalachia to help the region achieve socioeconomic parity with the nation.

The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is excited to announce that as an outcome of the thorough strategic planning process that we engaged in over the past several months, we have a new 5-year strategic plan and we will be refreshing our brand as the Pennsylvania Nursing Workforce Coalition (PA-NWC)!

A few notes about this change:

• We are calling this a “brand refresh” and not a “rebrand” because we want to be clear that the components of our structure are not changing. This includes the PA-NWC’s functioning as a program of the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC), and our Advisory Board structure as a coalition with organizations as members and individual representatives.
• We look forward to strengthening our position as Pennsylvania’s Nursing Workforce Center. The PA-AC has “housed” Pennsylvania’s Nursing Workforce Center since 2016 when we became a part of the National Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers. The “brand refresh” is just making this work more front and center.
• The PA-NWC will continue its strong relationship with the Future of Nursing reports and the Future of Nursing Campaign for Action. Our feedback expressed that one of our core strengths was our anchor in the national framework of the Future of Nursing’s goals and that our participants continue to feel connected to and inspired by its principles. Many other nursing workforce centers across the country are simultaneously their state’s Action Coalition and workforce center.

Learn more about our new strategic plan and the process that we followed at the link below! Stay tuned for additional materials and communications as well. We are excited to work with you in our new chapter as the PA-NWC.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now accepting applications for the Extramural Loan Repayment Program (LRP)! Awardees can receive up to $100,000 in qualified educational debt repayment with a two-year award.

To learn more about eligibility requirements, application dates, and the benefits of receiving an LRP award, be sure to visit the LRP website, check out our overview video, and attend one of our upcoming events:

• September 4 – LRP Twitter Chat
• October 7 – LRP Technical Assistance Webinar
• November 6 – Ask Me Anything

Please note that the deadline to submit your Extramural LRP application is November 21, 2024.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has launched the Debt Consolidation Tool, an innovative online tool available through farmers.gov that allows agricultural producers to enter their farm operating debt and evaluate the potential savings that might be provided by obtaining a debt consolidation loan with USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) or a local lender.

See USDA Launches Online Debt Consolidation Tool to Increase Farmer and Rancher Financial Viability for the press release.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced that for the first time in the 40-year history of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), the OPTN Board of Directors—the governing board that develops national organ allocation policy—is now separately incorporated and independent from the Board of long-time OPTN contractor, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). HRSA has awarded an OPTN Board Support contract to American Institutes for Research to support the newly incorporated OPTN Board of Directors.

These critical actions to better serve patients by breaking up the monopoly that ran the nation’s organ allocation system are part of the OPTN modernization plan announced by HRSA in March 2023. Prior to these steps, the national body responsible for developing organ allocation policy for the country—the OPTN—and the corporate entity contracted to implement the policy—UNOS—shared the exact same Board of Directors. The new board support contractor will be accountable to HRSA and will organize a special election for a new OPTN Board of Directors with a focus on eliminating conflicts of interest and ensuring that data, evidence, and the voices of clinical leaders, scientific experts, patients, and donor families are driving action and accountability. Moving forward, no member of the OPTN Board can sit on an OPTN vendor’s board of directors.

“Families anxiously waiting for a life-saving transplant for their loved one shouldn’t have to worry about how the system that determines who gets what organ is managed and governed,” said HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson. “That’s why we in the Biden-Harris Administration launched our major reform initiative to ensure patients, families, and clinicians have access to a best-in-class system that is fair, reliable, and transparent. Today’s announcements are an essential step forward in this work to make the system work better for patients and families.”

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, HRSA launched its Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Modernization Initiative to address systemic issues that have plagued the national organ allocation system for years, including inequities in access to transplant, lost organs, conflicts of interest, system reliability issues, and lack of transparency.

Last year, the President’s Budget included both legislative and funding reforms to implement the Administration’s vision for reform, which bipartisan leaders in Congress embraced—leading to the enactment of the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act in Fall 2023 and new appropriations commitments to implement the law.

With this new authority and funding, HRSA has worked swiftly to launch new opportunities to engage best-in-class expertise to support modernization. The OPTN Board Support contract awarded today will not only support the work associated with a new board election but also will provide logistical and governance support to the OPTN Board of Directors to improve the accountability and transparency of OPTN policymaking and governance processes.  Additional separate, multi-vendor contracts to manage various functions of the OPTN will be awarded in the coming months.

Fall semester is here, and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is excited to announce the selection of 16 Appalachian colleges and universities to participate in the research program this year!

Since 2001, 30+ schools (and 3K+ students!) from across the region have participated in our Appalachian Collegiate Research Initiative.

This program gives students the applied research tools they need to solve economic development challenges in their communities. 🔎

The full list of this year’s participating schools is online now. Stay tuned for more information about each of their research projects!

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is excited to announce that 30 local philanthropic organizations from across 10 Appalachian states have been selected to participate in READY Community Foundations, the fourth and final learning track of our READY Appalachia capacity-building initiative. ✨

Participating organizations will receive no-cost training to improve their programming, operations, fundraising and financial impact. Upon successful completion, they will be eligible to apply for up to $25K in funding (no-match required) for internal capacity-building projects.

All of the organizations serve at least one of the following:

• Distressed areas
• Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities priority communities
• Rural Partners Network Community Networks communities
• Historically underserved and marginalized populations

Learn more about the participants and READY Community Foundations!