Morris Brown College, which has fallen on some hard times in recent years, seems to be back on the mend with a three-year, $900,000 grant to stem HIV infections among young black adults, reports HBCU Digest.
The site reports that this is the second such award for the college in the last two years. The money will be used to launch seminar-styled education sessions on campus, with a focus on substance abuse prevention among college-age youths to prevent risky sexual behaviors.
The grant is reportedly part of a national initiative launched by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration targeting HBCUs as service delivery partners in vulnerable areas.
Morris Brown, established in 1816, and one of only a few HBCUs founded by African Americans, has served as a lead institution in the program since 2014 to help improve public health outcomes among youths in Fulton and Dekalb counties.
Greater Atlanta has alarming rates of HIV infections, and the state of Georgia ranks second among U.S. states in the rate of new HIV diagnoses. Only 73 percent of people in the Atlanta metro area who have HIV know it, because not enough people are getting tested for the virus. (The national average is 87 percent.)
The program at Morris Brown hopes to reach more than 400 participants by 2017.
Read more at HBCU Digest.