he Center for Health And Risk in Minority youth and adults (CHARM) is dedicated to chronic disease prevention in minority communities, with a focus on youth and young adults. CHARM brings together investigators from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), SF General Hospital (SFGH - a premier safety net institution providing healthcare to the diverse population of SF), SF State University (a minority serving institution with a large Latino student body). Northern California Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, UC Berkeley, and Stanford University, as well as community partners. The approach is explicitly transdisciplinary, linking investigators with clinical expertise in medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology with those with methodological expertise in disparities research, genetics, epidemiology, biostatistics, qualitative methods, public health, communication sciences, and health psychology. The 3 CHARM research sub-projects share the programmatic goal of understanding the influence that behaviors adopted in youth and young adulthood and other risk factors presence during this age period exert as precursors to chronic disease in racial/ethnic minority populations. Understanding the role of biological, behavioral, social, cultural, and environmental factors in chronic disease risk and acting on these underlying mechanisms holds the best hope for improving minority health and ultimately eliminating health disparities. The primary role of the Research Core is to coordinate and support all 3 proposed sub-projects in achieving this overall goal. Additionally, the Research Core communicates with the Training and Engaging Community forHealth Outreach (ECHO) cores to achieve the overall goals of CHARM.
The Aims of each of the 3 sub-projects and the overall goal of CHARM will be efficiently and effectively served by the leadership, expertise, communication functions, methods support, and modeling that will reside in this Core. The Research Core has the following primary aims and objectives: Research Core Aim 1. To coordinate methodological support utWlzed in each of the 3 sub-projects to optimize design, data systems, and analytic methods. Research Core Aim 2. To combine spatial data from a newly developed OurSpace Neighborhood Database with individual-level data from CHARM research sub-projects: (a) to map disparities in San Francisco, as well as behaviors and distribution/availability of resources that contribute to these disparities for use by the CHARM Training and ECHO cores, and (b) to provide area-level data for analyses within 2 of the 3 research sub-projects. Research Core Aim 3. To synthesize results of the 3 CHARM sub-projects in order to develop models that will inform the likely impact events in adolescence and young adulthood have on disparities in later life. These models will aid in the dissemination of the results of the sub-projects, particularly by the ECHO Core, and will include: (a) a complex systems model to illustrate the relationships of the determinants of disparities in adolescence and young adulthood, and (b) an extension of an existing model for understanding the policy implications oi interventions on determinants of disparities in California. The Research Core will be directed by Robert A. Hiatt. MD, PhD. Who is Professor and Chair of Epidemiology &Biostatistics at UCSF with expertise in leadership, epidemiology, surveillance, and disparities research. Other key personnel include Dr. David Rehkopf. ScD. MPH. with expertise in advanced epidemiologic methods and statistical modeling, and Dr. Bibbins-Domingo. PhD, MD, MAS who is overall PI of CHARM and who has expertise in clinical medicine, epidemiology, and chronic disease intervention modeling.
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