RCMI Cores

Core Directors: Dr. Cherise Harrington, [email protected]; Dr. Deepak Kumar, [email protected].

The Administrative Core (AC) of the RCMI Center for Health Disparity Research (RCHDR) is directed by the Executive Committee (EC), multiple principal investigators (MPIs), and the program manager. All administrative and logistical support for center activities is provided by the AC.

Specific aims for the Admin Core of the RCMI Center for Health Disparity Research (RCHDR) are: 

SA1: Provide administrative and logistical support for all center activities, including cores and research projects.

SA2: Provide career enhancement activities for new and early investigators through ancillary resources to support seminars, workshops, and/or other career enhancement activities that promote the recruitment, advancement, and retention of investigators in biomedical careers and by fostering synergy with other ongoing career development activities at NCCU. 

SA3: Provide an assessment of each proposed activity/core and assessment of the impact of the center in terms of enhancing the institutional infrastructure and environment necessary to facilitate biomedical research; increasing productivity of investigators in peer-reviewed publications and discovery; and increasing NCCU’s overall success in applying for and obtaining extramural research funding.

Core Director: Dr. M. Ricardo Richardson, [email protected]

Please visit the RCMI Research Capacity Core (RCC) page.

Core Director: Dr. Vijay Sivaraman, [email protected], 919-530-5564

Investigator development is an important part of capacity building for biomedical/behavioral research at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). Multiple NCCU units offer a strong pool of faculty/scientists that will be targeted for development into biomedical/behavioral researchers in health disparities. To further enhance the pool of scientists by providing pilot funding to generate preliminary data along with continuous support and mentoring, we apply two specific aims (SA):

SA1: Administer and employ a rigorous and competitive pilot project program to stimulate new health disparity research at NCCU: This aim is designed to allow NCCU researchers (including senior postdocs, research faculty, tenure-track and tenured faculty) to generate preliminary data for subsequent submission of grant applications in the area of health disparities.

SA2: Provide support for NCCU faculty to develop as biomedical/behavioral researchers by (a) instituting a structured mentoring plan including the development of an individualized career development program (CDP); (b) enhancing the health disparities research capacity at NCCU through training and ancillary activities such as seminars, workshops, fostering partnerships with neighboring institutions for capacity building of faculty; and (c) developing an internal grant review framework similar to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) online grant review process to ensure timely review of NCCU grants before submission to external agencies.

Core Director: Dr. Seronda Robinson, [email protected].

Academic institutions, community-based organizations, health care providers, and public health leaders must play a collective role in developing, employing, and distributing identified solutions in these areas. NCCU has partnered with rural North Carolina communities to conduct community-based participatory research through the NIH Center of Excellence, P20 Center for Translational Health Equity Research. Most of the NCCU translational work has been carried out with community-based partners in geographical areas with the lowest levels of research and clinical care infrastructures. We expand our capacity to conduct health disparities research in more rural and urban communities where the largest disparity gaps exist by further developing a collaborative community that includes academicians, community health care providers, and public health advocates from government and community-based organizations, who collectively can aid in understanding the communities’ needs and tailor the research instruments to best translate new findings and solutions into the community settings where under resourced populations live. The Community Engagement Core (CEC) does so through the following specific aims:

SA1. Develop a community infrastructure to provide the direction and priorities of the Core that promotes health equity among urban and rural areas in North Carolina. 

SA2. Expand and identify the priorities of our current community partners to support outreach activities that will describe the health disparities in local communities to inform NCCU RCMI research efforts. The innovation and significance of these partnerships has been demonstrated previously in our successful partnership with community stakeholders in the Research Triangle Park and Halifax County, NC. 

SA3. Translate findings from NCCU RCMI cancer and cardio-metabolic research into clinical and community-based practices that reduce health disparities. Develop and disseminate health information and curricula through workshops and collaborative interactions between Core representatives and patients, physicians and policymakers to improve the health disposition of their local communities.