Individuals who suffer from disproportionately high rates of premature morbidity and mortality, including racial and ethnic minorities, those of low socioeconomic status, and rural persons, are considered health disparity populations. Translational Research, a bidirectional process focused on translating basic scientific discoveries into health interventions, and then into clinical practice to improve patient care and population health, has been proposed as an important approach to reduce health disparities. Connecting these populations to new health advances requires effective health education, engaging more minority participants in clinical trials, producing more minority investigators and enhancing research infrastructure at minority institutions. RCMI Translational Research Network (RTRN) have been developed to leverage the existing physical and intellectual resources and to promote and support relevant multi-site clinical and translational research focused on reducing health disparities and improving health outcomes. To build upon five years of infrastructure growth, the consortium of NIH-funded Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) has come together to submit for a renewal for the network. RTRN will continue to synergize and coordinate the considerable multidisciplinary talents of basic, clinical and community investigators to gain new knowledge about the social, economic, behavioral, cultural, environmental, perinatal and genetic determinants of health disparities. Based on the success of the first five years and the data arising from the RTRN evaluation, as well as critical input from the RCMI Steering and External Advisory Committees, the following specific aims are proposed: Specific Aim 1: Enhance and streamline overall RTRN management and operations; Specific Aim 2: Engage RCMI investigators and other stakeholders, including the lay community, to strengthen capacity for multi-site clinical and translational research; Specific Aim 3: Enhance the infrastructure for project management, performance monitoring and data analysis; and Specific Aim 4.- Enhance the development and adoption of best practices for disseminating research findings to reduce health disparities and improve disease outcomes.

U54MD008149

2005-09-01

2019-12-31