This proposal seeks to create the Oklahoma Center for American Indian Diabetes and HealthDisparities (OCAIDHD). This Center is a widely multi-disciplinary, cross-college organization designedto harvest a significant range of scientific paradigms, special areas of expertise, and research methods allfocused on the amelioration of diabetes health disparities among American Indian (AI) people.The OCAIDHD takes as its operational philosophy that 1) all people are inherently valuable, 2)excess morbidity, mortality, and community disruption is unacceptable, 3) cultural diversity is a positiveforce, and 4) health disparity solutions will be collaborative, multidisciplinary, and biopsychosociallyoriented. With these foundational themes, AI diabetes health disparities can be broadly engaged throughexploratory research attacking several interconnected problems.The OCAIDHD has at its foundation of organization, the purpose of expanding and evolving thatwhich was accomplished via the EXPORT Center (see Description of the Project). The expansion andevolution leading to the approach delineated in this proposal is found in its new formulation in which thewidest range ever of colleges across the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) hasbeen brought to bear on AI diabetes: (Alphabetical after the lead College) Public Health, Allied Health,Arts & Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, plus the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundationthat is on the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center campus with staff who are employees ofboth. There is also the largest ever representation of academic research and education departments(Health Promotion Sciences, Health Policy and Management, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, NutritionSciences, Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Nursing, Anthropology, andPharmacy). The disciplines found in this expanded health disparities Center are medical anthropology,internal medicine, endocrinology, pediatrics, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition science, health policy, culturalanthropology, health education, epidemiology, biostatistics, life span studies, pediatric psychology, andCertified Diabetes Education. There are also the following Centers: Prevention Research Center onNative American Health, Oklahoma Diabetes Center, and the General Clinical and Research Center.Last, there is the crucial development of a partnership whose mission it is to assist tribes in improving AIhealth status and reducing health disparities. The partner is the Oklahoma City Area Inter-Tribal HealthBoard and its Southern Plains Inter-Tribal Epidemiology Center.This organizational system is a veritable biopsychosocial armamentarium of scientific expertiseand tools with which to mount a powerful attack on the problem of AI health disparities in diabetes.
The specific aims are:1. Collaborate with AI tribes in the conduct of research on diabetes with special attention tocommunications, cultural values, and balanced reciprocity in the ongoing interactions betweenthe OCAIDHD and the members of AI Nations.2. Conduct multidisciplinary research on diabetes in AI populations with the purpose ofameliorating and eliminating the current unacceptable health disparity gap.3. Increase the potency of the impact of the research by coalescing the multidisciplinary expertise ofthe Center's research staff into an effective interdisciplinary team aimed at the common goal ofAI diabetes health disparities amelioration.4. Provide constant communications with tribes regarding the progress made by the OCAIDHD withefforts toward the most rapid possible translation of research findings into real life, obviousbenefits to the AI people.
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