Consortium Core

The Consortium Core engages and integrates community and academic partners with interest in health equity and/or precision medicine into the center's activities.

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• Published

  November 23, 2016

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 Specific Aims:

1. Catalyze research in health disparities and precision medicine by creating a diverse consortium of members representing a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds
2. Enhance productivity of Consortium members by implementing trans-disciplinary collaborative activities
3. Enable novel trans-disciplinary research in health disparities by administering a pilot program

Research Team:

Investigators

• Olveen Carrasquillo, MD, MPH, University of Miami
• Stephania Miller-Hughes, PhD, MS, MSCI, Meharry Medical College
• Derek Griffith, PhD, Vanderbilt University
• Pamela Hull, PhD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
• Sonjia Kenya, EdD, MS, MA, University of Miami

Key Personnel

• Brendaly Rodríguez, MA, University of Miami

Projects:

1. Formation and Integration of an Advisory Board
   In year 1, we established an Advisory Board (AB) to provide input into the Precision Medicine and Health Disparities Collaborative’s operations/projects. The AB includes 3 types of stakeholders — traditional academic health centers, minority serving institutions, and community based organizations. They provide input as part of participation in web-based meetings and submit follow-up feedback into an electronic data capture system. To date, they have provided guidance in the naming of the Collaborative, development of a planning award request for applications (see Project 2 below), and review of planning award applications. Activities for future AB meetings will include investigators from either other Cores or Collaborative-funded projects (see Projects 2 and 3 below) presenting their work to the AB for input and guidance. The AB will also collaborative with a new Ethics Advisory Board (Implementation Core) and project-specific advisory groups and offer feedback as needed. Meet our panels members:
   • Katina Beard, MS, Nashville Health Disparities Coalition (NHDC) AND Safety Net Consortium of Middle Tennessee, Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center and Consortium
   • Margaret DeBon, PhD, Baptist Memorial Health Care (BMHC)
   • Mark Everett, PhD, Miami Dade College-Medical Campus
   • Alisha Haddock, CE McGruder Family Resource Center
   • Lisa Hamilton, PhD, Florida Community Health Worker Coalition (FLCHWC)
   • Tené Hamilton Franklin, MS, Office of Minority Health and Disparities Elimination
   • Tracye Henderson, LBSW, Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center
   • Heather Morris, PhD, OneFL Clinical Research Consortium, University of FL
   • Diana Ramirez, Nashville Latino Health Coalition (NLHC)
   • Medina Tipton, MHA, Southeast Health Equity Council (SHEC), National Partnership for Action (NPA)
2. Planning Awards on Precision Medicine 
   The Consortium Core of the Precision Medicine and Health Disparities Collaborative (PMHDC) approved funding to 3 community based organizations in the Southeast region as Community Engagement Planning Awards for Year 1. The goal of this funding opportunity announcement is to build a new collaboration or strengthen an existing collaboration between a non-for-profit community based organization and an academic partner on innovative projects and initiatives using Precision Medicine (PM) approaches. Each $25,000 was awarded to lead not-for-profit community based organization that is collaborating with an academic institution on the project. Funds will support innovative projects and initiatives to engage minority, vulnerable and medically under-served populations in PM and health disparities initiatives such as research, training and increased community awareness.
   • Awarded Organizations:
     • Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center (State: FL) will develop and implement a series of Community Outreach Educational events on precision medicine topics targeting community members and allied health professionals. http://www.mdahec.com/
     • Progreso Community Center (PCC)/Nashville Latino Health Coalition (State: TN) will conduct preliminary work via focus groups for a future community engaged research study to test patient educational materials about PM for Hispanic patients at community forum and individual interviews. https://www.progresocommunitycenter.org
     • FL CHW Coalition, Inc. (FCHWC) (State: FL) will coordinate a multi-platform education and dissemination activities to provide a structured training program for Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Precision Medicine (PM) and genomics. This specialized training 90-min curriculum will be conducted in both English and Spanish and across 6 Florida regions. www.floridachw.org
3. Pilot Awards
   • The Core is preparing a forthcoming Request for Applications for Precision Medicine and Population Health Pilot Awards focused on approaches to prevent, diagnose, and diagnose, and treat health conditions in African American and/or Latino populations. The goal is to enable subsequent highly competitive submissions of new grant applications to the NIH, CDC, HRSA, PCORI, SAMHSA and other funders. To broadly support precision medicine approaches in health disparities, we will seek to fund proposals on a variety of relevant topics, such as novel methods of data integration, population differences in pharmacogenomics and understanding the impact of adverse childhood experiences.