From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— Legislation being circulated by GOP authors would provide funding for fall prevention awareness and related efforts.
Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, and Rep. Rick Gundrum, R-Slinger, this week began circulating a cosponsorship memo for LRB-3242/1.
Under the legislation, the state Department of Health Services would award $450,000 in grant funding in fiscal years 2025-26 and 2026-27 to the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging. The funding would go toward statewide fall prevention awareness and initiatives. The bill would also appropriate the grant amount in both fiscal years for this purpose, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau.
The lawmakers say the grant program would help fund organizations that are already delivering effective education on preventing falls among older adults.
“As our population ages, we have the opportunity to support healthier, more engaged lives,” they wrote in the memo. “Older adults are more prone to falling and becoming seriously injured. This puts strain on families’ time and money, increasing health care costs, nursing home admissions, and strain on emergency medical services.”
The memo notes some local efforts are happening in the state but the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging is the only statewide group that focuses only on this issue. The institute offers classes and workshops focused on preventing falls, along with other related programs for both older adults and their caregivers.
The WIHA also created a statewide campaign in 2023 called Falls Free Wisconsin, which is aimed at reducing the number of falls among older adults in the state.
“It’s much better and cost-friendly to protect our older adults on the front end through prevention methods than to have to focus on helping them after a tragic fall,” the lawmakers wrote.
In 2020-21, the latest year for which figures are available from Falls Free Wisconsin, hospitalizations for older adult falls in the state cost $427 million. And in 2022, nearly 48,000 older adults in Wisconsin went to the emergency department for a fall-related injury.
The cosponsorship deadline is Monday.
See the bill text.
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