# Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2021 · $485,903

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CORE
The mission of the Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases is to promote health equity
and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, across the
Deep South. The Center will focus on the prevention, treatment and management of cardiometabolic diseases
among Black Americans and low-income populations who suffer disproportionately from these conditions in
this region. The Center is unified thematically through the application of the precision public health approach
across the care continuum to achieve health equity. Precision public health, best viewed as “providing the right
intervention to the right population at the right time”, acknowledges the importance of context, culture,
individual beliefs and preferences to achieve and maintain health equity. This approach also highlights the
need for equitable inclusion of non-academic partners to help translate contextually-relevant research into
community and systems-level interventions. As such, the Community Engagement Core (CEC) of the Center
serves as the central organizing unit for cultivating authentic, productive, and sustaining academic-community
partnerships to promote health equity in the Deep South region. The CEC includes expertise in health
disparities, community-engaged research, place-based research, health promotion, health policy, bioethics,
communications, and research dissemination. The CEC will be led by Dr. Monica Baskin (University of
Alabama at Birmingham) who will be responsible for overall programmatic direction and operations of the CEC.
She will be supported by co-lead, Dr. Caroline Compretta (University of Mississippi Medical Center) as well as
additional faculty responsible for various CEC activities, including Dr. Stephanie Broyles (Pennington
Biomedical Research Center) and Drs. Vivian Carter and Stephen Sodeke (Tuskegee University). Core
leadership will work closely with, and rely on input from, a community coalition comprised of various
nonacademic partner organizations as well as a separate community advisory board including community
members representative of targeted populations for Center research. The CEC will provide integral support for
the Center’s mission to improve health equity and reduce cardiometabolic disease disparities in the Deep
South by: 1) expanding and maintaining bi-directional academic-community regional partnerships; 2) preparing
a transdisciplinary biomedical research workforce for the conduct of community-engaged research; 3)
facilitating novel lines of translational research derived from bi-directional communication between
investigators and community members; and 4) equipping community members with culturally-relevant health
promotion materials, actionable strategies and new resources to improve health and reduce disease burden in
the region.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10437093
- **Project number:** 1P50MD017338-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** MONICA L. BASKIN
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $485,903
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-24 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10437093

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10437093, Community Engagement Core (1P50MD017338-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10437093. Licensed CC0.

---

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