St. David’s Foundation Supports Health Care for the Underserved at the School of Nursing at The University of Texas at Austin

AUSTIN, Texas — The School of Nursing at The University of Texas at Austin will use a $3 million gift to permanently endow the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research in Underserved Populations (CHPR) . The interdisciplinary center will be renamed for St. David's. "We are very pleased that this gift from the St. David's Foundation will allow the center to continue to support the important and innovative health-related research of faculty from many departments at the University of Texas at Austin," said Alexa Stuifbergen , dean of the School of Nursing. This is first time St. David's Foundation has funded a research endowment. "We were particularly attracted to this research center because it aims to optimize health outcomes for the populations that we serve: vulnerable, low-income, uninsured and otherwise underserved patients," said Earl Maxwell, the foundation's chief executive. Since it was founded in 1999, the center received $4.1 million from the National Institute of Nursing Research, part of the National Institutes of Health. The center funded almost $600,000 in pilot studies led by researchers from across campus - including the Schools of Nursing and Social Work and the Colleges of Education, and Liberal Arts.