Transdisciplinary Cardiovascular and Cancer Health Disparities Training: Experiences of the Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities (original) (raw)
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American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2008
Numerous factors play a part in health disparities. Although health disparities are manifested at the level of the individual, other contexts should be considered when investigating the associations of disparities with clinical outcomes. These contexts include families, neighborhoods, social organizations, and healthcare facilities. This paper reports on health disparities research as a multilevel research domain from the perspective of a large national initiative. The Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD) program was established by the NIH to examine the highly dimensional, complex nature of disparities and their effects on health. Because of its inherently transdisciplinary nature, the CPHHD program provides a unique environment in which to perform multilevel health disparities research. During the course of the program, the CPHHD centers have experienced challenges specific to this type of research. The challenges were categorized along three axes: sources of subjects and data, data charac teristics, and multilevel analysis and interpretation. The CPHHDs collectively offer a unique example of how these challenges are met; just as importantly, they reveal a broad range of issues that health disparities researchers should consider as they pursue transdisciplinary investigations in this domain, particularly in the context of a large team science initiative. (Am J Prev Med 2008;35(2S):S182-S192)
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Journal of Cancer Education, 2012
The Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR) encourages underrepresented master's level students and professionals in the social, behavioral, and public health sciences to pursue doctoral training and careers in cancer disparities research. This paper reports new data on the program outcome after 12 years. A web-based survey was sent to all 462 program alumni. The questions addressed current academic status and plans, job status and plans, research focus, and influence of the MTPCCR. The survey response rate was 79 %. Overall, 30 % of alumni are enrolled in or have completed doctoral programs; 88 % of whom report involvement in research related to cancer. Scaled and open-ended responses indicate a strong influence of the program on doctoral program enrollment and cancer focus. The MTPCCR model is successful because it targets underrepresented minorities who are capable of doctoral studies but have not yet chosen that path.
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Journal of Cancer Education, 2007
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Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science
Despite at least two decades of effort, the United States has made little progress in addressing the health disparities experienced by its most vulnerable residents. For many diseases, the gaps in health between groups continue to grow. In this paper, we first build a case for the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to eliminating health disparities, based on the premise that executing successful disparities research depends on the ability to visualize the multiple influences on health and health disparities and understand the complex ways in which they interact with one another to produce worse outcomes for some groups than others. We argue that our failure to prepare investigators to conduct transdisciplinary research has greatly impeded our progress toward eliminating the nation’s disparities. Finally, we articulate the challenges of implementing transdisciplinary education and training and recommend elements of a successful transdisciplinary educational program in health.
Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Ameliorate Cancer Disparities
Health & Social Work, 2010
Although much attention has been paid to health disparities in the past decades, interventions to ameliorate disparities have been largely unsuccessful. One reason is that the interventions have not been culturally tailored to the disparity populations whose problems they are meant to address. Community-engaged research has been successful in improving the outcomes of racial and ethnic minority groups and thus has great potential for decreasing between-group health disparities. In this article, the authors argue that a type of community-engaged research, community-based participatory research (CBPR), is particularly useful for social workers doing health disparities research because of its flexibility and degree of community engagement. After providing an overview of community research, the authors define the parameters of CBPR, using their own work in African American and white disparities in breast cancer mortality as an example of its application. Next, they outline the inherent challenges of CBPR to academic and community partnerships. The authors end with suggestions for developing and maintaining successful community and academic partnerships. Keywords cancer; community; engagement; health disparities; research Health disparities in the United States exist by race and ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status (SES), and geography and can occur in screening, incidence, mortality, survivorship, and treatment. To date, disparities by race and ethnicity have received the most attention and have been noted for all major diseases. It is alarming that the gap between racial and ethnic groups continues to increase through time for many diseases. Although cancer mortality decreased between 1975 and 2004 for the U.S. population as a whole, significant African American and white gaps persist for both women and men (Horner et al., 2009). Disparities in health and health care began to receive major attention in 1998 with the launch of the Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Initiative and its charge to public officials to address disparities. Subsequently, reducing health disparities is one of the two major goals of Healthy People 2010 and continues to be a major focus of federal research and policy interventions. Yet, despite this attention, little progress has been made in what is basic to the
Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 2015
A workshop entitled "Building a funded research program in cancer health disparities" was held at the 38th Annual American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO) Meeting. Organized by the Junior Members Interest Group, the session addressed topics relevant to career development for cancer disparities investigators. Such considerations include the development of research programs on a backdrop of existing multi- and transdisciplinary teams, recognizing opportunities for advancing their research, given the growth of consortia-related research, and development of effective community-based partnerships. Key strategies for developing a sustainable career in cancer health disparities in the current environment include the need to effectively engage with communities, appreciate the value of team science and develop cross-discipline collaborations, and navigate the use and utility of consortia for disparities research. Academic considerations related to earning tenure and promotion...
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The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 2008
Health disparities are common and a major focus of attention among health care researchers. The reasons for these disparities are several in number and broad in scope. Therefore, it will require a broadbased, multidisciplinary approach to fully understand and significantly reduce health disparities. Researchers with expertise in business and economics, public policy, education, language and communication, and social work will have to team with more traditional health researchers to achieve the desired goal. Our approach to this challenge was to develop a Health Disparities Research Group, a multidisciplinary group of university faculty with an interest in health disparities. University faculty from the disciplines mentioned above, plus others with varying amounts of research experience, have come together to form the group. In this article, we describe how this group was formed and some of its activities to assist in development of other such research teams across the nation.
Circulation research, 2018
Cardiovascular disparities remain pervasive in the United States. Unequal disease burden is evident among population groups based on sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, nativity, or geography. Despite the significant declines in cardiovascular disease mortality rates in all demographic groups during the last 50 years, large disparities remain by sex, race, ethnicity, and geography. Recent data from modeling studies, linked micromap plots, and small-area analyses also demonstrate prominent variation in cardiovascular disease mortality rates across states and counties, with an especially high disease burden in the southeastern United States and Appalachia. Despite these continued disparities, few large-scale intervention studies have been conducted in these high-burden populations to examine the feasibility of reducing or eliminating cardiovascular disparities. To address this challenge, on June 22 and 23, 2017, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Insti...