The overall purpose of the Research Core is to continue to foster the development and expansion of a program of research at the University at Albany that engages multiple academic disciplines with community-based partners in studies that increase our understanding of the presence, magnitude and causes of health disparities and the strategies that are most effective in eliminating health disparities. This will be achieved through the accomplishment of the following specific aims: 1. To support the implementation of the proposed research projects 2. To support the development of additional applications for funding of studies that will address health disparities in small cities and towns and that are planned and conducted through collaboration between university-based and community-based partners 3. To provide expertise on statistical issues in designing and conducting studies, analyzing the data and interpreting and presenting the results 4. To increase interactions and exchanges across units of the University at Albany and between university-based and community-based groups to discuss the significance of health disparities and to identify new opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration in research to understand and reduce health disparities The emphasis of the proposed COE Exploratory Center on health disparities in smaller cities and towns was also a focus of the University at Albany's EXPORT Center and continues to be an important and relatively understudied perspective on health disparities. As suggested in the Overview of this application, a variety of factors may distinguish the occurrence of health disparities in settings where the overall population size and proportional representation of the minority population are smaller. Supportive institutions for minority populations may be less prevalent, less established or less adequately endowed. The collective political ability to advocate for improved physical and social conditions or other resources to promote health might be weaker. A stronger sense of alienation and isolation among minority residents may be more likely to exist. While these and other potential influences may distinguish large cities from smaller cities and towns, the relative magnitude of health disparities by population size and the differences by population size in the determinants of disparities and strategies for their elimination remain uncertain. Through its support of the research projects in this application and the capacity for development of additional research projects, the Research Core will contribute significantly to our understanding of this aspect of health disparities.
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