# Cherokee Nation Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) 11

> **NIH NIH S06** · CHEROKEE NATION · 2022 · $146,830

## Abstract

Abstract
Major health disparities continue to impact tribal nations, yet a serious shortage of scientists conducting
American Indian (AI) health disparities research persists. For several years, Cherokee Nation, the University of
Oklahoma (OU) system, and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) have partnered to address
this issue by building tribal research capacity through the Native American Research Centers for Health
(NARCH) mechanism. In this cycle of NARCH funding, the partnership among Cherokee Nation, OU, and
OMRF continues and, importantly for student career enhancement, expands to include the Oklahoma State
University (OSU) system as a key partner for student career enhancement activities. The overall mission of
Cherokee NARCH is to develop durable research capacity within the context of an American Indian (AI) tribal
nation to address health disparities. To achieve this goal, the five Specific Aims of Cherokee NARCH are:
1. to strengthen administrative infrastructure, including a Leadership Team (LT) and a Tribal-Campus
 Advisory Committee (TCAC), that ensures integration of career enhancement, capacity building, and
 research activities;
2. to educate the next generation of researchers to engage meaningfully with Cherokee Nation in the
 context of tribal research, focusing on undergraduate, graduate and health professions students;
3. to build tribal capacity by developing a set of research codes to govern the conduct of genomic and other
 biomedical research predicated on the concept of tribal data sovereignty;
4. to conduct innovative research and pilot research capable of seeding future research projects
 performed by researchers seeking to work within the Cherokee Nation setting; and
5. to evaluate activities of the partnership, including monitoring progress of student career enhancement,
 capacity building, and research/pilot research projects, and evaluation of the overall Cherokee NARCH
program.
Cherokee NARCH provides a crucial opportunity to solidify the foundation for tribal capacity in health
disparities research. The addition of OSU strengthens Cherokee NARCH by its remarkable success in the
education of AI students in scientific and health professions fields, including the advent of the first tribally
affiliated medical school in the US. Cherokee NARCH therefore provides an unprecedented environment in
which a tribe, two research-intensive universities with large AI student populations (OU and OSU), and a
biomedical research foundation (OMRF) will work synergistically to reduce the unacceptable disparities in
health that continue to affect AI people.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10491132
- **Project number:** 5S06GM142119-02
- **Recipient organization:** CHEROKEE NATION
- **Principal Investigator:** SOHAIL Imran KHAN
- **Activity code:** S06 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $146,830
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-20 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10491132

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10491132, Cherokee Nation Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) 11 (5S06GM142119-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10491132. Licensed CC0.

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