This proposal is submitted in response to RFA NR -02 0004, Nursing Partnership Centers on Health Disparities Grants. Yale School of Nursing (YSN) and the Howard University Division of Nursing (HUDON) propose to develop a Partnership Center on Reducing Health Disparities by Self and Family Management. Self-management encompasses a broad range of health, lifestyle, behavioral and self-assessment and treatment activities practiced by an individual in the context of the family, often with the support of nurses. Self and family management activities vary across socioeconomic status, gender and ethnic/cultural background. Within certain groups, disparities exist in risk to health status, access to health care and in treatment outcomes. We believe that self-management represents one promising avenue for eliminating these disparities. With better understanding of self-management approaches in populations experiencing health disparities, nursing interventions can be developed to support self-management and eliminate health disparities. The Center builds on an existing partnership between YSN and HUDON: the federally funded Yale-Howard Scholars Program. The scientific focus of the Partnership Center extends the work of YSN's funded Exploratory Center on Self-Management Interventions for Populations at Risk into the area of disparities. The Partnership Center will build capacity by recruiting and developing nurse scientists to conduct culturally relevant and competent research to eliminate health disparities. The Center will be under the direction of Drs. Catherine Gilliss (YSN) & Dorothy Powell (HUDON), and will include: Administrative Core (Gilliss/Powell; Drs. Grey [YSN] & Nichols [HUDON]); Pilot/Feasibility Core (Drs. Williams YSN] & Austin [Howard University]; Research Mentoring Core (Drs. Funk [YSN] & Ruff [HUDON]; and Research/Outreach Dissemination Core (Drs. McCorkle [YSN] & Jordan [HUDON]). Proposals for four pilot studies are included with this application. In addition to building investigator capacity, our long-term goal includes the establishment of an Office of Research Affairs at HUDON.
