Racial and Ethnic Disparities Health Policy Model

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dr. Wong is a general internist who seeks support for further training in Epidemiology, Demography and Markov modeling methods. His principal research goals are to understand the pathways contributing to the racial and ethnic disparities in health care and outcomes, including health-related quality of life and mortality, and to identify areas of health and specific interventions to most efficiently eliminate these disparities. Dr. Wong is well trained in Health Services research, having obtained a Ph.D. in this area from the UCLA School of Public Health. He is strongly committed to research in racial and ethnic disparities, focusing on chronic illnesses and their outcomes. Transitioning from work on specific diseases, such as HIV, Dr. Wong now pursues to create a comprehensive and multidisciplinary clinical model to understand how chronic diseases contribute to lower life expectancy among minorities. To obtain the advanced skills for this research, he is now applying for a career development award. The mentorship committee has been carefully selected to supervise Dr. Wong's training in Epidemiology, Demography and Markov modeling. This training includes coursework at UCLA in the School of Public Health and Sociology Department and self-directed tutorials in Demography and Markov modeling. As sponsor of the Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award, Dr. Martin Shapiro will oversee his educational goals, career development and execution of his research plan. Dr. Eileen Crimmins, who is a Professor of Sociology and Gerontology with a degree in Demography, will also closely supervise the proposed research plan. The award will provide five years of supervised experience enabling Dr. Wong to develop his potential to become an independent investigator and a leader in health policy research related to racial and ethnic disparities in care. The overall objective of the research plan is to create a Markov cycle tree simulation model that will provide a broad clinical model of racial and ethnic disparities in mortality (Disparities Health Policy Model). Using this model, Dr. Wong will identify those diseases that contribute most to the disparities in mortality among African Americans, Latinos, and Asians compared to Whites. The Disparities Health Policy Model will also allow us to determine the degree to which the lower life expectancy among African-Americans can be attributed to a greater risk of getting a disease as opposed to a higher death rate from the disease once it has developed. Finally, we will use the model to predict the impact of selected clinical and policy interventions on the racial disparity in years of potential life lost.