# Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2023 · $5,002,787

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT: OVERALL
The “Deep South,” including Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, has the highest rates of obesity, diabetes
and hypertension in the nation. As a result, life expectancy in the Deep South is substantially lower than other
regions, and this discrepancy is even greater for Black Americans. 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 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 our tri-state region. The Center is unified thematically through the application of the
precision public health approach across the care continuum to achieve health equity, as the elimination of
disparities will require precision public health, i.e., “providing the right intervention to the right population at the
right time”. This approach acknowledges the importance of context, culture, individual beliefs and preferences
as well as the need for multi-level and multi-domain interventions. The Center brings together a trans-
disciplinary team of investigators from 4 institutions in 3 contiguous states (the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, Tuskegee University, Louisiana’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and the University of
Mississippi Medical Center) as well as regional non-academic partners to extend cardiometabolic research into
real-world community and clinical settings. The Center will drive academic and nonacademic partners toward a
new level of intellectual synergy, collaboration, and sustainable efforts to disseminate effective interventions
that reduce health disparities in the region. To achieve the long-term goal of improving health equity, the
Center will provide and coordinate resources not currently available through the following: 1) an Investigator
Development Core, to expand and diversify the region’s research workforce through enrichment activities and
a robust pilot program; 2) a Community Engagement Core, to promote equitable collaborations between
researchers and non-academic partners; and 3) the Administrative Core, to provide leadership and support for
all Center initiatives. The Center also includes three interrelated research projects evaluating multi-level and
multi-domain interventions that are informed by, and conducted with, academic and community stakeholders in
the region to address cardiometabolic health disparities among Black Americans and low-income populations.
Given the significant health disparities in cardiometabolic diseases evident in the Deep South, the strong
research base present at the partnering institutions, and the potential to expand and focus these energies on
health equity research, the Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases is ideally situated to
inform research, clinical car...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10676259
- **Project number:** 5P50MD017338-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** MONICA L. BASKIN
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $5,002,787
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-24 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10676259

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10676259, Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases (5P50MD017338-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10676259. Licensed CC0.

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