The Center for Research, Health, and Social Justice

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PROJECT SUMMARY – OVERALL Arkansas, located in the Southern region of the United States, ranks among the lowest in the nation in overall health outcomes and in cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Within Arkansas, place- and race-based disparities are quite profound, and rural residents and Blacks/African Americans fare the worst. Forty one- percent of Arkansans live in rural areas where socioeconomic distress, chronic disease risk factors, and social structural factors underlying these disparities have not changed in decades. Poverty and food insecurity are higher, and wages, employment opportunities and health care access are lower in rural than in urban Arkansas. Blacks/African Americans have the highest cancer and CVD mortality rates, the worst socioeconomic indicators, and have experienced enormous historic trauma, particularly in the Delta regions. To address this historical embedment of place- and race-based health inequities in Arkansas, the proposed Center for Research, Health, and Social Justice (CRHS) will use a social justice framework to inform the development and implementation of a robust process for advancing novel multilevel and transdisciplinary research, engaging communities in equitable partnerships to address the root causes of chronic disease disparities, and building, training and mentoring a diverse and competent research workforce prepared to eliminate disparities in cancer and CVD. Our social justice framework will help the CRHS identify interconnected patterns of systematic disadvantage in the community and in our research ecosystem to inform how the cores, research projects, advisory boards, and our broad-based coalition of academic and community partners can work synergistically to accomplish CRHS goals. Our coalition of stakeholders includes partners in the Northwest, Highlands and Delta regions of Arkansas and multiple institutional partners integrated into the cores and research projects who will employ common measures, tools, methods, and approaches to accomplish the CRHS goals. The CRHS will work with the NIMHD Chronic Disease Disparities Coordinating Center to leverage and share resources, engage in cutting-edge cross center research, and increase networking and research opportunities for new investigators. The CRHS will leverage multiple federally-funded resources including the Clinical Translational Science Award program, the National Research Mentoring Network, federally funded center grants, and federal surveys to help facilitate research, training, mentoring, dissemination, and translation of research to inform public practice and policy. CRHS builds on our prior successes and will create a robust research ecosystem that serves as a national model for eliminating chronic disease disparities by using a social justice framework for research, training, and community engagement.