Eliminating health disparities in minority communities through translational research, targeted policy revisions, community-based participatory research, and capacity building.

University Of The Virgin Islands, Charlotte Amalie VI

Investigators

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ongoing work of the Caribbean Exploratory Research Center (hereinafter CERC or the Center), located within the School of Nursing at the University of the Virgin Islands, has affirmed there is a high level of health disparities within minority populations living in the United States Virgin Islands and neighboring Caribbean countries. Additionally, it has been documented that there is considerable fragmentation in the areas of research policy and health education efforts. Further, early research conducted under the auspices of the Center has documented areas of poor health literacy across the community. Given these realities, the Center proposes to convene the Eight Annual Health Disparities Institute and use it as a platform to enhance the capacity of academic, institutional, and community partners to participate in the development, use, and evaluation of culturally relevant interventions. The theme for the Institute, Eliminating Health disparities in Minority Communities through translational research, targeted policy revisions, Community-Based Participatory Research, and capacity building, serves as the framework for the development of the Institute goal, specific aims, and the overall program. The goal of the Eighth Annual Health Disparities Institute is to engage researchers, policy makers, health care providers, practitioners, students and the wider community in identifying and articulating approaches to eliminating health disparities and achieving health equity and improved health outcomes for minority populations. The specific aims for the 2015 Institute are: 1. Examine the use of community-based participatory research as an approach to reducing health disparities and increasing health equity: What have we learned? 2. Identify best practices for addressing major health disparities in minority populations in the US: From research to implementation. 3. Identify evidence-based models for increasing health equity: applications for at-risk children and youth; immigrants; and the unemployed and chronically underemployed. To achieve the proposed aims and overarching goal for the Eighth Annual Health Disparities Institute, the program format includes plenary sessions, panel discussions, concurrent and poster sessions, as well as two pre-institute Workshops, one specifically geared to physicians and other health care providers and one geared to undergraduates interested in biomedical research. The elements of the program bring stakeholders and researchers together to facilitate information sharing and to catalyze the development of improved health policies and practices in the Territory. The Institute will culminate with a Policy Panel that will bring together key lawmakers, health care administrators, and researchers from the Territory and the wider Caribbean who will address the elimination of health disparities in minority communities through targeted policy revisions. Outcomes of the Institute include an increased understanding of health disparities by health care providers and their role in mitigating or exacerbating existing health disparities; the pairing of emerging professionals with established researchers to engage in specific health disparities research projects; better informed policymakers with respect to policies that impact health disparities; more engaged faculty in research efforts with CERC; and, an expansion of networks among researchers from the US Virgin Islands, the wider Caribbean and the US mainland engaged in research to reduce and eliminate health disparities in minority populations.