Investigating Obesity and Chronic Disease-Related Risk Factors of Alaska Natives

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The Center for Alaska Native Health Research (CANHR), established in 2001 with COBRE I support, has become nationally recognized for both the quality of its research to reduce disease and promote health among Alaska Native (AN) people and for Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) with minority populations. AN people have been engaged in all phases of CANHR research, including setting CANHR's current research agenda on obesity and metabolic disease. The evolution and solidification of this decade-long community partnership has expanded this research agenda into intervention research aimed at prevention and treatment of obesity and metabolic disease, youth suicide, and substance abuse. CANHR funding has increased from one NIH grant in 2001, to nearly $5M in 2010. With support from an NIH construction grant, we are building the first two clinical research laboratories in the state of Alaska, while increasing our net space by over 5,000 sq. ft. The University of Alaska Fairbanks leadership has increased its already substantial commitment to CANHR, further augmenting our research expertise with new faculty hires and consultation from nationally recognized senior researchers through the President's Professors program. Our publication rate continues to increase, surpassing 100 publications in the past four years. The goal of the proposed COBRE Phase III Transitional Center is to solidify these achievements with a focus on transitioning CANHR into a self-supporting, sustainable, nationally recognized research center focused on AN health and CBPR. We propose to do this by: (1) strengthening the infrastructure of core resources to support research and community engagement; (2) expanding mentoring and training opportunities to develop the next generation of AN health researchers; (3) developing an innovative Pilot Project program (External Partnerships for Specific Expertise), to foster collaborative research with scientific leaders at research-intensive institutions that, in our experience, will p9sitively impact our extramural funding success; (4) continuing the President's Professors Program to expand intellectual capital and national recognition of CANHR; and (5) including a comprehensive business plan to ensure income to sustain CANHR cores.