Research
EXPORT Health
In September, 2002, the Center for Minority Health was awarded a $6 million grant from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, a new Center within the National Institutes of Health. Project EXPORT (Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, and Research on Disparities in Health and Training) provides funding for the establishment of a Center of Excellence to address and ultimately eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. The Center for Minority Health calls its Center for Excellence EXPORT Health. EXPORT Health provides a mechanism by which the University of Pittsburgh, through its Graduate School of Public Health’s Center for Minority Health, can strengthen its research and training infrastructure for the study and elimination of minority health disparities. For 10 years, the Center for Minority Health has embodied the philosophy of creating academic and community partnerships to solve health problems for minorities. EXPORT Health works by uniting academic scholars, and public, private and community organizations to focus on key disparity areas in minority health. Minority health disparities are a complex, multi-faceted problem that cannot be solved in one quick stroke. EXPORT Health is divided into components, or “Cores”, each of which attacks a separate aspect of the problem of minority health disparities. These Cores, and their missions, are shown below:
- Administrative Core
The goals of the Administrative Core are to coordinate and ensure quality control over all EXPORT Health activities, provide administrative support and fiscal management for all cores and pilot projects, promote and monitor progress in the dissemination of research findings, and to provide infrastructure support for faculty career development and resources for new investigators in the field of minority health disparities. - Resource Core
The major goals for the Shared Resource Core are to provide an infrastructure that assures consistent, high quality research for all studies carried out through the EXPORT Center, serve as a resource for selecting and developing measures appropriate for studying the health of minority populations and community capacity, and to provide methodological consultation and training to EXPORT investigators, trainees and community partners. We believe that EXPORT Health must provide consultation with study design experts who can help EXPORT investigators develop reliable, valid measures, protocols and experiments. We want to provide quality assurance for all data collected for EXPORT studies. - Community Outreach & Dissemination
The primary goal of the Community Outreach and Information Dissemination (COID) Core is to build upon the existing infrastructure within the Center for Minority Health in order to integrate the EXPORT Center into existing CMH activities and into the local community as a resource for disease prevention and health promotion. The COID Core is at the juncture of the Center for Minority Health’s academic and social service missions and is also the conduit for EXPORT Health’s work to increase community-based participatory research. We believe that we must provide a model of public health research, partnership and collaboration to effectively eliminate minority health disparities. Pilot Projects & Feasibility Studies - The primary goal for the Pilot Core is to develop the capacity for community-based participatory research studies that address minority health and health disparities in an ethical, innovative, scientifically sound and community-focused manner. We believe that we will help foster more community-based research on minority health disparities if we give “seed money” to young investigators for initial, exploratory studies in this field. - Training Core
The primary goal for the Training Core is to increase the number of African Americans and Latinos who pursue careers in the Health Sciences and become successful members of the academic research community. We believe that increasing the number of minority researchers can help eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. - Minority Health & Health Disparity Education
The primary goal of this core is to increase the capacity of health sciences students and medical residents to address minority health and health disparities in a culturally competent and scientifically sound manner. We believe that we have to inform medical and scientific trainees about the existence of minority health disparities to engage them in the fight to end these disparities. We also believe that we have to educate medical trainees on how to deliver culturally competent health information and healthcare to minority patients.
- Research Cores
The primary goal of the Research Cores is to carry out direct research in four of the identified high-priority minority health disparity areas. The Research Cores are detailed below: - HIV/AIDS Prevention Research
The HIV/AIDS Core aims to reduce HIV infections and associated morbidity and mortality by increasing access to HIV primary and secondary prevention among those at risk of HIV in the Allegheny County African-American community.
- Immunization & Pneumonia Research The Immunization and Pneumonia Disparities Core aims to analyze the cause of disparities in immunizations and pneumonia processes of care and to foster research on interventions to eliminate them. Other aims include increasing the number of minority researchers addressing disparities in immunizations and antibiotic treatments for pneumonia and educating providers serving disadvantaged populations about immunizations and vaccine-preventable diseases.
- Physical Activity & Obesity Prevention Research
The Physical Activity and Obesity Prevention Core aims to develop a package of assessment tools and intervention materials that can be utilized in a health promotion and disease prevention program in local African American communities. Another aim of this core is to examine and identify the most culturally sensitive, appropriate assessment tools and intervention materials for use in African American communities.
- Cancer Screening and Management
The overall goal of the Cancer Core is to increase the participation of African-Americans in cancer screening and management services and to broaden community-based activities that are directed towards eliminating disparities and equalizing the uneven burden of cancer in our society. The aim is to develop and enhance dissemination of information and increase research capacity by using a stress reduction model.
