Aetna Announces 2003 Regional Grants; Focused on Health Care Disparities, Funding to Support More Than 100 Organizations; Aetna Giving Exceeds $260 Million since 1980.

Business Editors

HARTFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 25, 2003

Aetna (NYSE: AET) today announced the recipients of nearly $2.5 million in funding through the Aetna Foundation's regional grants program. Focused primarily on addressing disparities in health and disease prevention, the grants will support 102 initiatives across the country. Founded as Aetna's independent charitable and philanthropic arm more than three decades ago, the Foundation has provided over $260 million in community-based support since 1980.

"Aetna has a special interest in addressing health concerns in communities across the country," said John W. Rowe, M.D., Aetna's chairman and CEO. "We are especially interested in reducing the gap in health care among racial and ethnic populations, and anticipate devoting significant funding to support various regional and national disparities in health initiatives and cultural competency this year. The $2.5 million in grants announced today, directed at local organizations, are part of a coordinated, multidimensional approach that includes research, education, data collection and support of a variety of initiatives regarding racial and cultural diversity."

Grants have been awarded in the following regions:

Mid-Atlantic 17 grants $440,000

Includes grants for programs such as:

-- Camden (New Jersey) Eye Center's Sight First for Kids, which

provides free and low-cost eye care services and glasses for

children from underserved, low-income and uninsured families.

-- Zero to Three National Center for Infants, Toddlers and

Families' program, promoting cultural competency in pediatric 

residents at Children's National Medical Center in Washington,

D.C.

-- STOP Diabetes (Students Take on Prevention), a school-based

health education effort through the Albert Einstein Healthcare

Network that utilizes teen students as peer educators to

communicate about diabetes.

North Central 14 grants $365,050

Representative grants include:

-- Kansas City Free Health Clinic program on disease awareness,

aimed at the city's African-American and Hispanic communities.

-- University of Chicago cultural competency education program to

train physicians at the UC MacNeal Hospital Department of

Family Medicine in dealing with the growing Mexican-American

population.

Northeast 16 grants $423,000

Grants include:

-- Project Health's Asthma Swim, a college student-run

after-school program that combines education and physical

activity to address the symptoms and management of asthma.

-- Primary Care Development Corporation will seek to increase and

improve interactions between underserved patients, health care

professionals and community organizations, with special focus

on diabetes care in northern Manhattan, central Brooklyn and

the south Bronx in New York City.

-- Northern New Jersey Maternal Child Health Consortium will

distribute 1,500 copies of A Focus on Future Generations, a

publication addressing the best practices in providing

culturally competent care. The book focuses on conditions that

disproportionately affect African-American women of

childbearing years and their children.

Southeast 23 grants $440,000

Representative grants funded by Aetna include:

-- The Georgia Association for Primary Health Care's

cross-cultural communications training series, a program

intended to enhance the delivery of care to minority patients

suffering from chronic diseases.

-- The National Conference for Community and Justice's program,

"Creating Culturally Competent Healthcare Professionals." The

series, focused on three local hospitals in the Miami/Dade

County community, provides training programming for physicians

and other health care professionals on cultural-competency

issues.

-- The Memorial Foundation's "Hispanic Health Outreach

Initiative," an education program focusing on issues impacting

the Hispanic community.

Southwest 14 grants $365,000

Grants funded by Aetna include:

-- "Can Barbers Cut Blood Pressure Too?" a program of the

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas,

which engages local barbers in bringing hypertension education

and awareness to their communities.

-- The Discharge Facilitator program at Baylor College of

Medicine targeted at the emergency room, and seeking to bring

awareness of cultural disparities to health care professionals

and to improve home health care.

West 18 grants $440,000

Regional grants in the Western region funded by Aetna will include:

-- Physicians for a Violence Free Society to facilitate a more

sophisticated and proactive medical response to partner

violence in the Latino communities of California.

-- The Center for Health Professions, University of California at

San Francisco, to develop a cadre of health professionals

trained on the issues of health disparities and provide

culturally competent care.

-- The Arizona Foundation for Women Inc., Children's Mobile

Advocacy Center, which brings comprehensive services and

telemedicine technology for the treatment and prevention of

child abuse to Native American children and their families.

About the Aetna Foundation

The Aetna Foundation is the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. Founded in 1972, the Foundation seeks to help build healthy communities by funding initiatives that improve the quality of life where our employees and customers work and live. Since 1980, the Aetna Foundation has contributed more than $260 million in grants, scholarships and social investments. The Foundation's giving is focused on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

In 2002, Aetna's philanthropic giving totaled $15 million. Additional Information about the Aetna Foundation is available at www.aetna.com/foundation.

About Aetna

Aetna is one of the nation's leading providers of health care, dental, pharmacy, group life, disability and long-term care benefits, serving approximately 13.0 million medical members, 11.0 million dental members, 7.4 million pharmacy members and 12.1 million group insurance customers, as of September 30, 2003. The company has expansive nationwide networks of more than 590,000 health care services providers, including over 355,000 primary care and specialist physicians and 3,577 hospitals. For more information about Aetna, please visit the company's web site at www.aetna.com.