Research Core

University Of Colorado Denver, Aurora CO

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

This renewal application for the Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Health Disparities (CAIANHD; P60 MD000507)is organized into 4 Cores: an Administrative Core, a Research Core, a Research Training and Education (RT/E) Corel and a Community Engagement and Outreach (CE/O) Core. Jan Beals, Ph.D., Professor of Public Health, leads the Research Core. Dr. Beals has served as a senior methodologist for the Centers of American Indian and Alaska Native Health (CAIANH) for more than 20 years, with extensive experience in the design and conduct of studies in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. William Henderson, Ph.D., a senior biostatistician with extensive experience in the design, implementation, and analysis of clinical trials, is also a member of the Research Core. For the past decade. Dr. Henderson has worked closely with Drs. Manson and Beals on studies involving AI/AN populations. In this renewal of the CAIANHD, we focus on the health disparities emanating from the high levels of trauma (as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)^ experienced by AI/AN populations. The Research Core houses 2 research projects, both designed with the goal of ameliorating these trauma-related health disparities. Research Project 1 (RP1) focuses on the development of trauma screening, brief intervention, and referral methods in 2 different but complementary primary care settings in Alaska and Oklahoma. Research Project 2 (RP2), takes place in these same settings, with a focus on the development of health information technologies to better serve both the patients experiencing trauma-related physical and behavioral problems, and the clinicians who care for them. The Research Core, then, plans and carries out an interdisciplinary, culturally grounded, problem-oriented research program of major scientific and programmatic importance to the health status and functioning of AI/AN people. The research projects housed within this core are informed by a dynamic multilevel conceptual framework of health disparities; furthermore, within this framework, we have chosen to focus on the development of interventions to ameliorate the health disparities emanating from the high levels of trauma to which AI/AN peoples are exposed.