Bringing New Minds and New Methods to Bridging Health Disparity and Equity

This special issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved highlights selected papers presented at the Twelfth RCMI International Symposium on Health Disparities, held in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A., from December 6-9, 2010. The thematic focus of the meeting was on bringing "new minds and new methods" to the efforts of bridging the gap between health disparity and equity. The symposium provided an excellent platform to bring together scientists conducting pre-clinical, clinical, translational, and health policy research, community members, health care providers, government officials, and private industry, to discuss and exchange innovative ideas and strategic approaches to promote and achieve health equity through research, training and education. The symposium featured oral and poster presentations on important topics such as such as cancer, diabetes and obesity, cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, stroke, mental health, women health, behavioral health, and social health. In addition, professional development workshops were organized on grantsmanship, mentoring and career development, and research collaborations.

In their quest for effective solutions to eliminate health disparities among minorities, poor and underserved communities, researchers from the 18 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) and other institutions presented and exchanged their research findings at this meeting. Thus, the research presented covered a wide array of basic sciences, clinical, translational, epidemiological, and health policy research. The reports that have been peer-reviewed and published in this issue of JHCPU are snapshots of some of the science presented at the meeting. They represent the diversity of topics as well as institutions that are part of this scientific engagement.

The basic science research is represented in this issue by four articles, each of which takes a molecular approach to investigating a disease problem of high relevance to the poor and underserved population. One report focuses on the decrease in intracellular pH of chemosensitive neurons in brainstem as a possible underlying patho-physiology of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Another report investigates how the CCR5 chemochine receptor haplotypes may affect HIV/AIDS susceptibility and disease progression, by identifying the transcription factors differentially recruited to the polymorphic sites in the CCR5 promoter. Using an in vitro model of human epidermal keratinocytes, the third report explores molecular mechanisms of how exposure to environmental arsenic in combination with ultraviolet B radiation would cause skin cancer. The last report in this group discusses the scientific evidence linking vitamin D deficiency as a potential contributor to the risk of cardiovascular diseases among African American populations.

Five epidemiological studies are included in this issue and they approach different diseases and health problems. The first report examines the epidemiological data of the 2009 outbreak of H1N1 influenza virus in the U.S., while a second one assesses the relationship between obesity and cardiovascular diseases in four U.S. Southern states in comparison with the population of Colorado. Another report evaluates the effect of exposure to silica on respiratory function in Egyptian miner population. One report investigates the patterns of condom use among women who live in public housing development in Puerto Rico while the last report in this group examines the racial/ ethnic and geographic disparities in diagnosis of late stage prostate cancer in Florida.

Issues pertaining to clinical practice and translational research are addressed in the remaining seven reports. A report by Chow assesses the rates and predictors of anal dysplasia in HIV-infected Asian and Pacific Islanders in Hawaii, while a report by De Jesus shares the successful field experience of providing affordable and sustainable HIV molecular tests in resource-constrained countries of the Caribbean.

The crucial role of subject recruitment for clinical trials and community-participatory research in reducing health disparities is addressed in two reports. In the first one, Cooper et al. describe the successful model of engaging faith-based community of metropolitan Atlanta as providing sustainable participation in clinical trials at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

The institutional review boards (IRBs) regulate the ethical standards governing participation of human subjects in clinical trials and community-based research. In the second report...