Despite ongoing efforts, medically underserved populations continue to experience disproportionate rates of morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases. The disparity gaps are particularly notable among minority men. Precision medicine holds significant promise to make substantial strides in reducing racial disparities through the delivery of individualized health care based on biological, behavioral, and social factors that contribute to disease risks and enhance health outcomes. Academic health centers, community-based organizations and providers, and public health leaders need to play a collective role in developing, implementing, and disseminating these precision medicine approaches into the settings that are most likely to impact the health of minority men. To date, most precision medicine research and translation into the clinical settings have traditionally been conducted within the context of academic health centers which largely reside in urban settings with the highest levels of research and clinical care infrastructures. To expand the capacity to conduct precision medicine in more regional, rural communities where the largest disparity gaps exist, an even more collaborative community inclusive of academicians, community health care providers, public health advocates from government and community-based organization will need to work together utilizing the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to understand the needs and tailor the mechanisms to best translate precision medicine into the community settings where minority men largely seek their care. Therefore, the Medical University of South Carolina Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center (MUSC TCC) will meet this need by serving as a multi-regional hub for translating novel precision medicine approaches into the community with an explicit goal to promote health equity among minority men. To this end, MUSC has solicited the commitments from numerous academic and community-based advocates from HHS regions III, IV, and VI who are equipped with the expertise needed to fulfill the goal of this TCC for form a Consortium Core which will be the major component within the Center?s overall Consortium Steering Council. These Consortium Core members will be charged with the following specific aims: (1.) Form a multi-regional infrastructure to provide the direction, priorities and governance of this TCC to promote health equity among minority men through precision medicine; (2.) Identify priorities for precision medicine research among diverse academic, community, clinical, and public health stakeholders through the leadership of the Consortium Core and by having key Consortium members reach out to their local communities to identify gaps and preferences for precision medicine intervention which will inform future MUSC TCC research efforts; (3.) Implement and monitor pilot project research to address minority men?s health in precision medicine; and (4) Translate findings from TCC research into clinic and community-based practices to address racial disparities among minority men.
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| Rice, LaShanta J; Jefferson, Melanie; Briggs, Vanessa et al. (2017) Discordance in perceived risk and epidemiological outcomes of prostate cancer among African American men. Prev Med Rep 7:1-6 |
| Halbert, Chanita Hughes; McDonald, Jasmine A; Magwood, Gayenell et al. (2017) Beliefs about Genetically Targeted Care in African Americans. J Natl Med Assoc 109:98-106 |
