Achievements in health equity: nesting an NIMHD center of excellence within a CTSA.

Abstract

The Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) aims to speed the process of transforming new discoveries into improvements in human health. Critical to achieving this outcome of improving human health is the engagement of community, broadly defined, across the research spectrum. Moreover, including community members who do not traditionally participate in research nor benefit from research findings, must occur. Indeed, the Institute of Medicine highlighted the importance of engagement and collaboration in its recent review of the CTSA program (IOM, 2013). Translational science is a team-based endeavor; the more diverse the team, the greater the likelihood new discoveries will benefit more people. Unique populations (age, ethnicity, gender, place, race) experience disparities in health outcomes that translational science must address. The challenge becomes one of how to minimize these disparities by harnessing the promise of translational science through the CTSA program, while bringing voices of all constituencies to the table. In the latest strategic plan to combat health disparities (HD), the NIH listed four major goals: promoting HD research; fostering innovative collaborations and partnerships; training a diverse workforce; and translating and disseminating new discoveries. It is evident that both the CTSA program and the NIH strategic HD plan emphasize the necessity to engage community. Likewise, a CTSA Advisory Work Group identified three additional strategic goals that align with the HD plan: workforce development, integration, and development of novel methods. Thus, a rather unique opportunity exists to improve human health and reduce disparities, while achieving these established goals. At the University of Wisconsin Madison (UW), we integrated a P60 Center of Excellence funded by the National Institutes for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) within our CTSA program to create the partnership required to effectively conduct community engaged HD research. Institutional commitment, along with shared personnel, resources, and complementary expertise, are transforming the academic culture to value engagement along the entire translational research spectrum. In time, we believe “nesting” of the P60 within the CTSA will improve the health of Wisconsin citizens and increase health equity.