Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) Regional Expansion

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract With this supplement, the Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) will focus on African Americans living in rural and low-income inner-city communities in the Southeast to impact health disparities associated with obesity and related chronic diseases. The targeted region was selected based on disease burden and health needs, our ability to reach the population and availability of partners to facilitate the implementation of academic research and community projects. Our academic partners include the Louisiana State University (LSU), the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) and Jackson State University (JSU); all are located in an area of highly visible need, within close proximity to large poor, underserved minority populations. We benefit from longstanding relationships with these regional partners and from established strong ties to community organizations in each state. To impact the significant health disparities of our region, the OHDRC will accomplish the following aims. We will expand the OHDRC Common Data Elements and Measurement Shared Resource to incorporate regional social determinants of health (SDH) measures for use by investigators and by clinicians through their incorporation into the electronic health records of patients in our three partnering states to develop risk prediction tools for chronic disease incidence, progression, treatment and outcomes. We will also expand the OHDRC career enhancement and mentored health disparities research training opportunities to investigators at LSU, UMMC and JSU through innovative and complementary regional pilot awards and secondary cohort data analysis opportunities to build regional research capacity in obesity and obesity-related chronic diseases research. Finally, we will leverage existing relationships established through the previously funded NIMHD U54 Mid-South Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center for Health Disparities Research (Mid-South TCC) to strengthen engagement of partners and coalitions and to implement evidence-based interventions by conducting a regional demonstration project to evaluate community-led implementation of an evidence-based intervention ? Reach Up & Out: Toward a Healthier Lifestyle ? to impact healthy eating and physical activity in African-American women in rural and urban Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. This supplement has prompted our institution to take its strong history of multidisciplinary collaboration to a new level, by collectively expanding the efforts of many centers to encompass the Southeast region. Our proposed regional expansion will place the OHDRC in a unique position to build research capacity to address chronic diseases, provide tools to improve health outcomes, and engage communities to conduct evidence- based research in partnership with our underserved populations to exert a sustainable and measurable impact on the significant obesity and related chronic disease health disparities in this region.