Irene dankwa mullan nimhd diversity
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Working with Communities to Improve Health
Improving health is not always a matter of prescribing the right medicine. Sometimes the environment needs to change. Many Americans live in neighborhoods that lack safe walking routes, grocery stores, and health facilities.
“Are there places for kids to play? Are there good farmers markets or grocery stores?” asks Irene Dankwa-Mullan, M.D., M.P.H., formerly of NIMHD and now deputy chief health officer of IBM Watson Health. Such features help people in a neighborhood live healthier lives. Along with NIMHD director Eliseo Pérez-Stable, Dr. Dankwa-Mullan wrote an editorial in the April 2016 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, “Addressing Health Disparities Is a Place-Based Issue.”
Efforts to address these problems in particular communities are called “place-based interventions.” Ideally, these interventions come from a collaboration among community members, businesses, and other
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NIH Minority Health Institute Moves Ahead on Science Visioning of Health Disparities
At the June 9 meeting of National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NACMHD), outgoing Acting Director Yvonne Maddox updated the Council on the Institute’s Science Visioning process for health disparities research. NIH Deputy Director Larry Tabak will serve as the Institute’s Acting Director until newly appointed director Eliseo Perez-Stable’s arrival in September.
To initiate the process, the Institute released a request for information in April (see Update, May 4, 2015). Maddox reported that a trans-NIH Science Vision Advisory Group had been appointed and working groups are being established. The working groups will hold discussion forums around areas of science “to establish foundational concepts for advancing the science of health disparities research.” The trans-NIH advisory group is populated by senior NIH leadership and led by Irene Dankw
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NIMHD Announces New Textbook
NIMHD recently announced the release of a new textbook, The Science of Health Disparities Research, edited bygd Drs. Irene Dankwa-Mullan, Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, Kevin L. Gardner, Xinzhi Zhang and Adelaida M. Rosario. The publication is now available in bookstores.
Building upon the advances in health disparities research over the past decade, this new textbook will serve as a reference to scientists developing a research program focused on health disparities research.
These strategies will inform policies and practices addressing the diseases, disorders and gaps in health outcomes that are more prevalent in minority populations and socially disadvantaged communities.
In 26 chapters, the book describes how using an interdisciplinary approach can reduce inequities in population health studies, the importance of relying on community engagement for much of the research pro