Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Every April, we celebrate National Minority Health Month in order to call attention to the health disparities that affect racial and ethnic minorities across the country. This year’s theme of “Active and Healthy” living is timely, given the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation’s recently released report on the obesity epidemic in Marion County and Indiana. This obesity report found that one in three Hoosier adults is obese, and more than two in three are overweight or obese. In Marion County, the rate is even higher with 39 percent of adults having obesity, up from 26 percent in 2005. While […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Smoking remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, and Indiana’s smoking rate continues to rank among the worst in the nation. Smoking kills more than 11,000 Hoosiers each year. These impacts are felt especially hard among low-income individuals on Medicaid, who are more likely to be smokers. In addition to the public health impacts, smoking also hurts Hoosiers through high taxpayer-funded costs. For example, Medicaid smokers in Indiana cost $540 million more each year than non-smokers, according to a study we released earlier this year. These lost resources could instead […]