Admin Core

The burden of racial and ethnic health disparities is most evident in the southeastern United States, where Black and Latino populations suffer the highest rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cancer, and asthma. These chronic conditions are a primary cause of poor health, reduced quality of life, and premature death, and account for more than 50% of health care expenditures. Despite substantial reduction of some chronic diseases and risk factors over the last few decades, the Southeast continues to have the highest number of potentially preventable deaths for each of the five leading causes of death. Racial and ethnic minorities comprise 39% of the population of the Southeast (HHS Region IV), which includes nearly 15 million African Americans and 9 million Latinos. Minorities in the Southeast fare worse on many health indicators compared to other regions, in large part due to poor socioeconomic status, with more than 22% of Southeastern residents living in poverty. Effectively addressing pervasive chronic disease disparities will require interventions that consider the needs, priorities, and lived experiences of those disproportionately impacted. Research teams with expertise in social, environmental, behavioral, and biological disciplines must collaborate to develop and test multicomponent strategies aimed at the multilevel determinants that drive disparities. The Administrative Core of the Southeast Collaborative for Innovative and Equitable Solutions to Chronic Disease Disparities builds on existing, highly-productive, health disparities research collaborations across multiple institutions in the Southeast, where efforts to mitigate chronic disease disparities have been numerous, yet remain intractable among African Americans and Latinos. The Core will create a cross-institutional structure, bringing together faculty from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of Miami School of Medicine, and Meharry Medical College to: Specific Aim 1. To develop and sustain a highly productive and efficient regional transdisciplinary collaborative center that enables chronic disease disparities research to reduce disparities among African American and Latino populations. Specific Aim 2. To effectively expedite data integration, coordinate data harmonization, and share data across research projects and pilot projects, and with the Coordinating Center. Specific Aim 3. To facilitate Center operations through real-time data collection for continuous quality improvement and support prospective monitoring and evaluation of Center activities.