This revised application in response to PA 96-007 seeks funding for the development of a """"""""Research Program Project"""""""" (RPP), which will provide a comprehensive research environment for the investigation of mental health issues among minority populations, focusing on neuropsychiatric disorders and quality of life, and employs brain imaging, neuropsychiatric, and neuropsychological assessments in historically underserved groups of ethnic and cultural minorities. Submitted under the auspices of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science?s (CDMS) Program in Neurobehavioral Research, the proposed RPP (""""""""Understanding Neuropsychiatric Disorders Among Underserved Minority Populations """""""") addresses urgent public health concerns that impact the lives of millions of underserved citizens, interrupt the lives of their families, require extensive health care and supportive care resources, and cost the United States billions of dollars annually. The human and economic costs associated with cognitive and neuropsychiatric conditions among minority populations will continue to spiral upward unless we can empirically develop effective means of preventing and treating these mental health problems. The long-term objective of the proposed RPP is to significantly increase the capacity of CDMS to conduct state-of-the-art clinical neuropsychiatric research emphasizing issues relevant to underserved, minority populations. The ultimate outcome of these efforts will be improvements in the mental health and general functioning of the considerable numbers of minority individuals who are affected by neuropsychiatric disorders. The multi-project investigations to be coordinated and supervised by the proposed RPP will pursue two long-range overarching research themes: (1) the understanding of potential differential expression of neuropsychiatric disorders among underserved, ethnic minority populations (including adult and juvenile African Americans, and Hispanics), and (2) the identification of effective assessment and treatments, and of potentially promising interventions to be explored in future research. An underlying focus of the work is the development into a research organization consisting of experienced and committed professionals conducting innovative clinical neuroscience investigations that attract other scientists from regional, national, and international communities of scientists.
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