BCBSOK Grant to Fund Spanish Edition of Governor’s Strong & Healthy Guidebook

A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that Oklahoma’s Hispanic population grew by more than 55 percent since 2000. To address the health needs of this growing population, Gov. Brad Henry’s Strong and Healthy Oklahoma initiative is printing its successful Strong & Healthy Oklahoma guidebook in Spanish, thanks in part to a more than $154,000 grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma.

Gov. Henry’s Strong and Healthy Oklahoma initiative was designed to connect programs and partnerships throughout the state to provide Oklahomans access to resources where they live, work and learn. The Strong and Healthy Guidebook helps Oklahomans to overcome the barriers to good health by putting them in direct contact with those resources.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma contributed to the first printing of the guidebook, in English, in 2006. Since then it has been distributed statewide to more than 600,000 Oklahomans. Printing 100,000 Spanish edition guidebooks will enable 38 percent of Oklahoma’s Hispanic population to have access to one guidebook.

The grant check will be presented to representatives of the Strong and Healthy initiative at 10 a.m. on June 12 at the Latino Community Development Agency in Oklahoma City. The Spanish edition of the guidebook will be printed by the Oklahoma Publishing Company and available in July.

“We’re pleased to be part of the governor’s initiative,” said Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma President Bert Marshall. “And we’re eager to put this guidebook into the hands of as many Oklahomans as possible. We’re dedicated to improving the health of our state, one person at a time.”

Throughout its 69 year history, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma has been committed to meeting the health care financing needs of Oklahomans. As the state’s oldest and largest private health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma provides health care benefit plans for more than 600,000 Oklahomans. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma is a division of Health Care Service Corporation, which also operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, New Mexico and Texas. Health Care Service Corporation is a mutual legal reserve company and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

The Strong and Healthy Guidebook-Spanish Version is available thanks to the following partner organizations: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma, OPUBCO Communications Group, the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the Oklahoma City-County Health Department and the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.