University Of Pittsburgh Receives 5-Year, $4.8M Grant To Establish Center Focusing On Eliminating Minority Health Disparities

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 12 Nov 2007 - 7:00 PDT

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The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities has awarded the University of Pittsburgh with a five-year, $4.8 million grant to establish a minority health disparity research center, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. With the grant, the university's Graduate School of Public Health's Center for Minority Health will establish the Research Center of Excellence in Minority Health Disparities.

The center will focus on minority health research findings and promote better health among blacks. Under a new program, researchers will identify 100 black families and go directly into their homes to help them better manage a healthy lifestyle, Stephen Thomas, CMH director at the university and lead investigator, said. The grant also will help Charles Reynolds -- director of the Late Life Mood Disorders Center in the department of psychiatry -- conduct a mental health study that seeks to prevent the onset of mental illness, such as depression, in blacks with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"This grant enables us to look at solutions," Thomas said, adding, "We will get people and the African-American community in a position to take control of their health. They must save themselves, and we can make sure they have the information they need to take charge of their own health" (Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/9).

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