Center for Research, Health and Society

PROJECT SUMMARY - OVERALL Arkansas, located in the Southern region of the United States, ranks among the lowest in the nation in overall health outcomes and in cancer and cardiovascular disease. Within Arkansas, the place-based burden of chronic diseases is quite profound, with rural and low resource communities faring the worst. Forty-one percent of Arkansans live in rural areas where chronic disease risk factors and underlying determinants of health have not changed in decades. Poverty and food insecurity are higher, and wages, employment opportunities and health care access are lower in rural than in urban Arkansas, and particularly in the Delta region of the state. To address the place-based health burden in Arkansas, the Center for Research, Health, and Society (CRHS) will use a community engagement framework to inform the development and implementation of a robust process for advancing novel multilevel and transdisciplinary research. The Center will engage communities in partnerships to address the causes of chronic diseases and build and train a competent workforce among academics and community members who are prepared to reduce cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Our community change theme will help the CRHS identify factors in the community and the academy that inform how the cores, research projects, advisory boards, and our broad-based coalition of partners can work synergistically to accomplish CRHS goals. Our coalition of stakeholders includes partners in the Northwest, Highlands and Delta regions of Arkansas and multiple organizational partners integrated into the cores and research projects who will employ common measures, tools, methods, and approaches to accomplish the CRHS goals. The CRHS will work with the Research Coordinating Center to leverage and share resources, engage in cutting-edge cross center research, and increase networking and research opportunities for new investigators. The CRHS will leverage multiple federally funded resources including the Clinical Translational Science Award program, the National Research Mentoring Network, federally funded center grants, and federal surveys to help facilitate research, training, mentoring, dissemination, and translation of research to inform public practice and interventions. CRHS builds on our prior successes and will create a robust broad-based research ecosystem that serves as a national model for reducing chronic diseases.