The Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS), a research center within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

, was established in October 2002 with a 5-year grant from the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD), of the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

 (NIH) under the Centers of Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities, and Training program (Project EXPORT). HCHDS strives to eradicate disparities in health and health care

Health care

Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

 among racial and ethnic group

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...

s, socioeconomic groups, and geopolitical categories such as urban, rural, and suburban populations.

The HCHDS also works collaboratively with community-based organizations, historically black colleges, and minority serving institutions

Minority Serving Institution

In the higher education system of the United States, minority-serving institutions make up a category of educational establishments based on enrollment criteria...

 to advance knowledge on the causes of health and health care disparities and develop interventions to eliminate them. Specifically, the HCHDS has collaborated with JHU- based organizational entities as well as the National Institute on Aging

National Institute on Aging

The National Institute on Aging ' is a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health , located in Baltimore, Maryland.The NIA leads a broad scientific effort to understand the nature of aging and to extend the healthy, active years of life...

, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology of the Gerontology Research Center; Shaw University

Shaw University

Shaw University, founded as Raleigh Institute, is a private liberal arts institution and historically black university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest HBCU in the Southern United States....

; Operation Reach Out South West (OROSW); and Nora, LLC. The HCHDS has been designated as a national Comprehensive Center of Excellence in Health Disparities by the NCMHD of the National Institutes of Health, and in 2007 was awarded a second 5- year grant to continue its work. The Center has a national focus although much of the actual work takes place in the local Baltimore, Maryland community.

Mission "Exploration and Intervention for Health Equality..."

The mission of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions is to generate and disseminate knowledge to reduce racial/ethnic and social class disparities in health status and health care through research, training, community partnerships, and advocacy.

Exploring Health Disparities in Integrated Communities Study (EHDIC)

This is a large scale collaborative study consisting of determinants of disparities in chronic conditions. Progress in understanding the nature of health disparities requires data that are race-comparative while overcoming confounding between race, socioeconomic status (SES), and segregation. The EHDIC study is a multi-cohort study that addresses these confounders by examining the nature of health disparities within racially integrated communities without racial disparities in SES.

College Health and Wellness Study

Overweight and obesity is an epidemic in the United States, particularly among minority populations. This epidemic contributes to the development of chronic conditions that occur later in life such as Type 2 diabetes

Diabetes mellitus type 2

Diabetes mellitus type 2formerly non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or adult-onset diabetesis a metabolic disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose in the context of insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. Diabetes is often initially managed by increasing exercise and...

 and hypertension. The center conducted a cross-sectional survey

Cross-sectional study

Cross-sectional studies form a class of research methods that involve observation of all of a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time...

 among students graduating from a Historically Black College

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....

 or University (HBCU) in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Participants were 392 predominately African- American seniors graduating in the spring of 2003. Data were collected using a self-administered paper and pencil questionnaire which focuses on weight, weight management activities, weight history, and health status indicators.

The Cultural Competency Organizational Assessment (COA360°)

The COA360° is a multidimensional cultural competency tool that evaluates the readiness of a healthcare organization, or unit within an organization, to meet the needs of a rapidly diversifying U.S. population. Developed and scientifically validated by Johns Hopkins researchers, its advantage is that it provides a “360-degree view” of the institution from the perspective of its administrators, healthcare providers, non-provider staff, and patients, rather than focusing on a single health care provider, as is the case with most cultural competency tools available today. The COA360° online system is an automated service that identifies the strengths and areas for improvement for healthcare organizations providing care to culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Measuring Trust in Health Care

This is a study to examine the validity of the psychometric properties of a new measure of trust/ mistrust of medical care systems. Trust is the foundation of the interrelationships that make civil society

Civil society

Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...

 possible and the important of trust within healthcare is no less critical. Patients are inherently vulnerable within medical encounters and must be trustful of the multiple institutional entities and individuals involved in their care. Patients must trust that individual healthcare providers are competent and will have their best interest in mind while making treatment decisions. They must trust that the pharmaceutical companies

Pharmaceutical company

The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs licensed for use as medications. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to deal in generic and/or brand medications and medical devices...

have developed effective drugs and that the regulatory agencies have adequately monitored them. And, they must trust that the healthcare organization and that its staff will manage their medical information with discretion and confidentially.

Environmental Influences on Tobacco Use in Urban Hispanic Young Adults

The Hispanic Community in Baltimore City, the Baltimore City Health Department, HCHDS, and other important stakeholders worked together to examine the understanding of contextual factors (i.e., community/neighborhood and societal) that contribute to the high rates of tobacco use in the Hispanic community, with a focus on the population ages 18–24.

Developing Measures of Parental Knowledge in Physical Activity

Parental knowledge of child health and development issues can have important effects on child health. Greater awareness of the content areas in which parents require more guidance can help clinicians devise parent-centered strategies to reduce identified knowledge deficits and may both increase the quality of care and reduce disparities in child health. The primary goal of this pilot project is to develop a set of parental health knowledge assessment questions relevant to physical activity in children 5 years or younger and to conduct preliminary reliability and validity studies
of these questions.

Training and Education

The Kellogg Community Scholars and The Urban Health Institute Fellows are both Postdoctoral training opportunities found at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that address health disparities-related issues.

Kellogg Community Scholars

The goal of the Community Health Scholars Program (CHSP) is to increase the number of faculty at health professional schools, with an emphasis on schools of public health, who possess the capacity to carry out community-based participatory research and teaching and who understand determinants of community health and how to build the capacity of communities, health-related agencies and academic centers to function as equal partners in community-based research, service and education.

Urban Health Institute Fellows

The goal of the UHI Postdoctoral Research Fellowship program is to promote future leaders in the field of urban health research. The fellows, each working in tandem with a Hopkins faculty member, carry out scholarly research and publication on such issues as crime, unemployment, poverty, substance abuse, diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases.

Graduate Training Opportunities

In addition to offering Doctoral and Masters degrees, the Bloomberg School of Public Health also offers certificates of concentration in subspecialties in public health. Thus, a student can obtain a Doctoral or Masters degree from any one of the ten departments that comprise the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and also earn an optional certificate in a specialized topic area. The school currently offers certificates in 21 topic areas, including the Certificate Program in Health Disparities and Health Inequality, established by Drs. LaVeist and Gaskin in 2003. The program is open to students enrolled in any graduate degree program at Johns Hopkins University.

Journal Club

Established in Fall 2003, Critical Issues in Health Disparities is a journal club that focuses on health disparities, inequalities and inequities. The aim of the club is to facilitate increased understanding of the issues and controversies relative to these topics by creating opportunities for students, staff and faculty members.

• Hear from experts in the field
• Engage in discourse with each other
• Keep up with the current literature
• Develop a community of researchers and scholars

The journal club has a strong focus on racial/ethnic health disparities in the U.S. Topics for discussion include:

• Conceptualization, definition and measurement of race/ethnicity in public health
• How race/ethnicity is used in public health research and application
• Intersection of race/ethnicity and other social determinants (e.g., gender, socioeconomic position, discrimination)
• Interventions/solutions (design, implementation and evaluation)
• Acculturation and immigrant health
• Cultural competency
• Social justice
• Distinction between racial/ethnic disparities in health vs. in health care
• Historical perspective of racial/ethnic disparities
• Patient/provider interactions

Publications

Gibbons, Michael. eHealth Solutions for Healthcare Disparities. New York: Springer, 2007.

LaVeist, Thomas. Race, Ethnicity, and Health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

LaVeist, Thomas. Minority Populations and Health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Notable Persons

• Thomas LaVeist, PhD, Director
• Roland Thorpe Jr, PhD, Project Director
• Rachel Howard, MPH, Administrative Director
• Diane Griffin, Administrative Coordinator
• Caryn Bell, Research Assistant
• Shannon Stierhoff, Marketing Coordinator

• Sherry Adeyemi
• Pierre Kébreau Alexandre, PhD, MS, MPH
• Sara Bleich, PhD
• Lee Bone, MPH, RN
• Janice Bowie, PhD, MPH
• Tina Clarkson
• Kitty Chan, PhD
• Michele Cooley, PhD, EdM
• Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH
• Lisa Dubay, PhD, ScM
• Jean Ford, MD
• Craig Fletcher, PhD, DVM
• Tiffany Gary-Webb, PhD, MHS
• Darrell Gaskin, PhD
• Chris Gibbons, MD, MPH
• Keisha Pollack, PhD, MPH
• Charles Rohde, PhD
• Joyce Smith

External links

• Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions
• National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities