GREENSBORO – The University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s School of Nursing has been awarded a grant that will bring in more than $1.06 million from the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to coordinate the Teamwork in Research and Intervention to Alleviate Disparities (TRIAD) Project for Health Disparities.

The goals of the three-year project are to increase outreach, training and research in health disparities and to assist the community, region and state in meeting the health needs of an increasingly diverse citizenry.

Although the money was awarded to the School of Nursing, the interdisciplinary project is a collaborative effort between the Schools of Nursing, Health and Human Performance and Human Environmental Sciences; the Departments of Anthropology; the Institute for Health, Science and Society; and the Center for New North Carolinians at UNCG; as well as the Moses Cone Heart Center, the Guilford County School System and HealthServe Medical Clinic.

“It has always been important for UNCG to be a community-oriented institution. We are playing off the strengths and capabilities of the university, while meeting its mission,” said Dr. Debra Wallace, principal investigator of the project. “This project reaches cross-culturally, is research intensive, serves the greater university and its community and is interdisciplinary – pulling together many departments, schools and service organizations in the Triad.”

TRIAD Project for Health Disparities has three components: research, training and outreach. The project focuses on the African-American, Hispanic and low-income populations in an 11-county region in central North Carolina’s Piedmont triad.

In Guilford County alone, African Americans make up 29 percent of the population, the Hispanic population has increased by 453 percent over the last five years, and poverty is at 12 percent while unemployment is at 6 percent.

At the same time, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US. Bureau of Census, and Health Carolinians 2010, statistics, the targeted population meets or exceeds national and state target levels for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and HIV/AIDS. The occurrence of heart disease in North Carolina is 140 percent of the national target, while diabetes is four times the national target. In addition, new HIV infection in minorities is higher than the national average.

The TRIAD Project will be used to develop and conduct research focused on the early detection , prevention and avoidance of risk behaviors for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. In the fist three years, TRIAD has identified six areas of research to support, including the quality of life among Hispanic diabetics, sexual risk behaviors among college-age African American men, and heart disease among older minority women.

This research will help determine what health disparities are most prevalent. As the project moves forward, it will train researchers to be experts and consultants to local community programs, and train others to conduct research on health disparities. In the long run, the research will help direct the focus of the outreach programs for this and future efforts.

These outreach and educational programs include service provisions, health education and literacy efforts. This project will fund efforts to increase cultural and linguistic familiarity of the staff, faculty, students and community providers involved in educating the public of risk factors, including English as a second language in HIV/AIDS education and prevention, and teaching better nutrition among African American and low income school children.

“Depending on what we find and what outcomes we reach, the project activities may affect policy, change people’s minds about health in these at risk groups or simply provide people access to the services they need,” Wallace said. “We want to involve the community in this, and find out what is important to them.”

By Greg Moody
Posted 12-19-03

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