The purpose of the Oklahoma Center for American Indian Diabetes Health Disparities (OCAIDHD) is to reduce and eventually eliminate the excess mortality, morbidity, and quality of life and culture lost due to diabetes. The primary impacts of the OCAIDHD will be on diabetes, maternal health, infant mortality, and obesity. The OCAIDHD confronts health disparities by focusing the expertise of a multi-disciplinary, multi-college team of diabetes researchers on specific biological, physiological, behavioral, and cultural stressors of the disease. The Center also has added non-university strengths owing to its partnership with the Oklahoma City Area Inter-tribal Health Board (covering all tribes in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas) and its Southern Plains Center on American Indian Epidemiology. That the OCAIDHD is directed by an American Indian (AI) researcher is a significant part of its ability to relate to American Indian people who continue to endure health disparities in the face of unprecedented medical technology for diabetes. The Center is organized by four cores: 1) Administration, 2) Research, 3) Research Training and Education, and 4) Community Engagement and Outreach. The Administrative Core will serve as the overall unit of coordination, supervision, and accounting. It will be directed by the Center PI and have an internal Executive Committee comprised of the PI, Co-Pi, Project Coordinator, and all Core Directors. The Administrative Core will also house the External Advisory Committee comprised of AI diabetes researchers and leaders outside the University. The Research Core will be directed by the Center's Co-PI. The Research Core will oversee three Full Proposals and four Pilot Projects. The cross-cutting theme is reduction of the multiplicative effects of biomedical and sociocultural insults to optimal management of diabetes. Full Proposal topics are 1) Early Markers of Pre-eclampsia in American Indians with Type 2 Diabetes, 2) Insulin Resistance and Glucocorticoid Treatment of Inflammatory Diseases of High Prevalence among AFs, and 3) AI Diabetes Beliefs and Practices: Maternal Care, Infant Mortality, and Adherence. Pilot Projects will explore these topics: 1) SF-36 Medical Outcomes Survey: Validations and Cultural Adaptation in the American Indian Population with Diabetes, 2) Weight Bearing Activity: Links to Diabetic Foot Health in American Indians, 3) Regular Moderate Exercise in Elementary-aged American Indians: Steady Activity in Life Study (SAILS), and 4) Arterial Elasticity in Overweight and Normal Weight American Indian Children. The Research Training/Education Core is directed by an AI who is the head of the Southern Plains Epidemiology Center of the OCAIHD's partner organization. The core's activities will prepare nurses from AI clinics and hospitals in Oklahoma and Kansas with the instruction and support necessary to conduct practical research studies within their health care settings. Completion of this activity will result in a cadre of AI nurse researchers with a specialty in diabetes, a curriculum for model replication, and a process evaluation. This core will also coordinate other education activities of the Center .The Community Engagement/Outreach Core is directed by an AI behavioral science specialist in childhood traumas. This core will augment and support the Native Youth Preventing Diabetes summer camp open to all Oklahoma AI's age 8-12 years. This vital project will expand the number of attendees and collect data on fasting lipids, glucose, blood pressure, random blood glucose, waist circumference, and BMI.
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