# OHDRC Academic-Community Engagement and Dissemination Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2021 · $300,000

## Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unique challenges for vulnerable populations. As part of the
mission of the OHDRC, we have maintained continuous community engagement and partnerships aimed at
finding ways to reduce the impact of obesity and related chronic diseases. With the advent of COVID-19, we
were quickly able to leverage these long-standing and trusting relationships to learn how COVID-19 was
perceived by the residents of our partnering vulnerable communities. Through ongoing community dialogue,
we know that there are substantial differences in how residents in our partner communities understand and act
upon COVID-19 guidance, perhaps contributing to the alarming disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. Overall,
residents feel that COVID-19 is making marginalized communities even more marginalized. In this
environment, it is vital that we find ways to improve COVID-19 vaccination, testing and follow-up care through
collaboration with community partners.
 The overall goal of this proposal, COVID-19 Testing Model for Vulnerable Populations: Revision to
Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Uptake, is to expand the RADx-UP Revision to the NIMHD (U54) UAB Obesity
Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) to explore COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Jefferson County,
Alabama and based on these results, design and integrate a multi-level vaccine hesitancy component into the
existing parent RADx-UP grant. The overall goal of the parent grant, COVID-19 Testing Model for Vulnerable
Populations: From Community Engagement to Follow-Up, is to implement a three-component mobile
community-based testing model and evaluate its impact for improved reach, access, acceptance, uptake, and
appropriate follow-up to COVID-19 testing. We will utilize the infrastructure of the existing project, including the
Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and Community Advisory Board (SAB) as well as a strong Partner Council of
community organizations. We will also partner with the Alabama Community Engagement Alliance against
COVID-19 (AL CEAL), which has built an extensive infrastructure across Alabama.
 This study will use the results of work on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and uptake in Alabama
conducted by AL CEAL and will conduct further qualitative and quantitative assessments to explore deep
vaccine hesitancy to design and evaluate a multi-level intervention to decrease vaccine hesitancy that can be
integrated into existing CEAL and RADx-UP community-level and individual-level efforts, while also addressing
key systems-level influences, churches and primary care clinics.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10427558
- **Project number:** 3U54MD000502-19S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** MONA N. FOUAD
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $300,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2003-09-22 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10427558

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10427558, OHDRC Academic-Community Engagement and Dissemination Core (3U54MD000502-19S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10427558. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*