The goal of the Community Outreach and Health Disparities Core (COHDC) is to encourage and facilitate effective diabetes translation research among investigators who seek to decrease risks for diabetes and its sequela among vulnerable minority populations, especially African Americans. Through our work, we expect to increase collaboration, perform quality intervention research, and increase the rate of positive behavior change among patients and at-risk persons. We will work with investigators that have funded research projects and support those that are seeking funding for projects in development. African Americans carry a disproportionate diabetes burden and are usually hard-to-reach and/or engage in research focused on evidence-based methods to reduce this burden. Hence, community-engaged research strategies must be used to encourage and facilitate reach and engagement, through implementation of infrastructural, organizational, and behavioral models, and evaluation of effectiveness through use of appropriate and sensitive measurement tools. Besides the diabetes statistics, our work is driven by the obesity epidemic, a risk factor for diabetes, because it is so pervasive in our region (Southeastern United States). Planning and conducting translational research requires many different skills, and very often investigators do not have all the skills needed. The COHDC brings together an experienced, multi-disciplinary team that can support translational research with minority and underserved population.
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