JABSOM Endowed Chair for Native Hawaiian Health

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) Endowment Program for Increasing Research and Training Capacity provides the Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence (NHCOE) at the University of Hawaii (UH) John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABS(o)M) an opportunity to establish a research program through the recruitment of a Director of Research under the $21 funding mechanism and to pursue a renewable source of funding for infrastructure, programs, education and research. Both of these opportunities will encourage efforts to reduce and eliminate health disparities in Native Hawaiians and other underserved populations. Although residents of Hawaii enjoy one of the longest overall life span and the best health status in the nation, the comparative life expectancy of Native Hawaiians (NH) is the lowest of all major ethnic groups and is about 5 years less than the state average. The NH suffer the highest age-sex standardized mortality rates of any major ethnic group in Hawaii and have more years of productive life lost due to heart disease, accidents, cancer, suicide, AIDS, stroke, diabetes, chronic lung disease and chronic liver disease. The following specific aims are proposed to address these major health disparities: 1) to establish an endowment fund for a Chair at JABSOM who will serve as the Director of Research at the NHCOE. The fund will be managed by the UH Foundation and administered by the NHCOE at JABSOM; 2) To increase the corpus of the NCMHD endowment through reinvestment of earnings, solicitations and bequests from charitable trusts, private industry, private citizens and applications for other funding opportunities from the NIH and other agencies; 3) To recruit a Director of Research to develop a strong research program focused on health disparities of NH and other underserved populations; and 4) To establish a renewable source of funding for researchers engaged in disparities in NH health research, support for students, enhance educational and training programs and build infrastructure to support the objectives of the NHCOE and the health disparities research program. The goal of this grant is to develop an effective organization for promoting the physical and mental health of all Native Hawaiians and underserved populations in Hawaii. The research program addresses the objective of this RFA to "close the gap between disparities in the burden of illness and death experienced by ... Asian Pacific Islanders and other underserved populations as compared to the Nation as a whole."