Beginning as an evening medical school in 1901, the School of Medicine now enjoys an international reputation for its educational, clinical and research programs; and in recent years, a national reputation for the production of minority physicians made possible by its commitment to recruit, admit and retain students (RAR Program). To strengthen its focus on minority health and health disparities research and training, the Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) is submitting this grant proposal to establish a Center of Excellence (COE) and develop the resources as well as the infrastructure to conduct full-scale research on health Disparities and Training. The objectives of the Temple Center are to promote specific new avenues of interdisciplinary research aimed at reducing racial and ethnic health disparities; to broaden existing basic and clinical research efforts such that they consider issues related to health disparities-with a special emphasis on applying translational-medicine to health disparity research; to build the baseline research capacity, infrastructure, expectations, and environment of support needed to sustain long-term health disparities research at our minority-serving institution; and to promote broad and increased participation of patients, physicians, and researchers in health disparity research involving biomedical, behavioral, preventive, or interventional activities. As detailed on the pages that follow, the objectives will be met by use of grant funds to establish the following components: a) an Administrative Core; b) Feasibility Research with related pilot studies, constituted during the planning phase primarily by four established investigators; c) Community Outreach and Information Dissemination, including a well-established K-12 educational program within the local school district in North Philadelphia and an existing Community Outreach Program funded by Temple University Health System (Salud Program) that includes multiple Community-Based Partnerships such as Congreso de Latinos Unidos as well as Community-Based Clinics, including Maria de los Santos Health Clinic; and d) a Training Component via existing institutional NIH-T35 and NIH-T32 training grant mechanisms. Thus, the establishment of a comprehensive center of this nature at Temple will promote minority health research and will help to prevent as well as to eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. ? ?
