UCSF Center Receives Grant To Study Health Disparities, Chronic Disease

The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) awarded the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF) center a five-year, $22.5-million grant to research health disparities in chronic diseases. The grant is part of a NIMHD initiative to fund a consortium of the UCSF coordinating center research along with 11 centers based in other institutions.

Research at the centers will analyze topics ranging from social determinants of health to interventions using faith-based initiatives and neighborhood institutions. The 11 centers received NIMHD grants totaling nearly $205 million to address prevention, access to care, quality of care, and self-management of chronic disease.

“The same social determinants of health — access to nutritious food, safe housing and quality education — influence disparities in multiple chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, cancer, oral health, and HIV,” principal investigator Stuart Gansky, DrPH, said in a press release. “And those diseases also often interact with one another. The idea is to connect all of those dots.”

One of the most important functions of the new center will be to encourage researchers to work with groups of individuals in their communities early on and throughout the research process.

This effort will be led by Kim Rhoads, MD, MS, MPH, associate director for Community Engagement at UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Greg Rebchook, PhD, associate professor of medicine.

“My role will be to leverage the vast experience and deep community engagement here at UCSF to support other centers as they enhance and cultivate similar relationships with their current and future community partners,” said Rhoads, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“We will also have the opportunity to learn from other centers and improve on our own work. It’s a tremendous honor, privilege, and responsibility to lead a national effort that will move us a significant step closer to achieving health equity.”

The UCSF center will also maintain an external website to keep affected communities and other interested groups up to date on new research and initiative across the health disparity research consortium.

“What we do particularly well here at UCSF is both work with the community and work with each other across disciplines,” said Charlebois. “It is critical that we bring in a range of key and often unheard voices and perspectives early on, while we are identifying priorities and figuring out intervention and research designs.”

UCSF’s center will provide research consortium organization and support with technical assistance such as study design. The center will also collect common data elements among the 11 centers’ projects to conduct larger-scaled analyses and cross-center studies.

“Our efforts will ensure that what the centers discover through their interventions will benefit a broad group of stakeholders committed to the elimination of longstanding chronic disease disparities, not just those who are impacted locally,” Rhoads said. 

According to principal investigators, an ideal outcome of the center’s work would be policy changes that make healthy living more accessible.

“We are trying to figure out the best ways to give people a chance for an even start, to have an even playing field. Health at the same level for all,” Gansky said.