Reducing Health Disparities

Through their research, faculty seek to understand and eliminate health disparities in those populations that bear the greatest burden of illness: the poor, African Americans, Latinos, and those living in rural areas. In 2002, the School created the Center for Innovation in Health Disparities Research in partnership with North Carolina Central University and Winston-Salem State University, two Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Center’s primary goal is to promote culturally competent research to reduce health disparities. Faculty in the SON are studying factors that contribute to greater illness burden among African Americans and Latinos and are testing interventions to improve, among others, the health of Latina mothers and their infants and toddlers, African American parents and their school age children, African American adults of all ages, and women prisoners.

Currently funded research studies (studies may be listed in more than one focus area):