Building grassroots community support to reduce tobacco use, encouraging low-income women of color to have breast cancer screenings, and supporting health and family stability screenings and services for new students are among the projects that Blue Cross

The foundation board, at its second-quarter meeting for 1999, awarded over $400,000 for 10 programs, including four programs to reduce tobacco use and six to improve health care access. Programs for tobacco reduction approved for foundation awards were: - "Minnesota Acts: Grassroots Action for Healthier Communities:'' a pilot program in three Minnesota communities to promote healthy behaviors, with a focus on preventing youth from starting to smoke. The program is the successor to "Minnesota Decides: A Community Blueprint for Tobacco Reduction,'' sponsored by Blue Cross and other health care organizations in 1997-1998 to create a statewide plan to reduce tobacco use. For more information on Minnesota Decides, visit http://www.mnbluecrosstobacco.com. - Minnesota Institute for Veterans Research: a pilot program in two St. Paul high schools to reduce tobacco use among students by creating intervention teams with youth leaders for anti-tobacco advocacy and peer education. - Winona County Community Health Services: for a community organizer to further Winona County's community tobacco reduction project, Winona Health Challenge. - Vietnamese Minnesotans Association: a new program to reduce tobacco use within the Twin Cities' Southeast Asian community.

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