It is often said that in order to move forward, we must look back. Through the NIMHD lens, one will see great strides in scientific advancement, huge gains in programmatic activities, and strong wins with collaboration!

We recently funded 11 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Specialized Centers, one of our legacy programs. We also introduced a new blog series, which will bring forth insights from authors of our special issue in the American Journal of Public Health. 

Now, as we look forward to expanding upon our research, NIMHD is sponsoring a June 2020 issue in the Ethnicity & Disease journal. We are also finalizing the NIH Minority Health and Health Disparities Strategic Plan, an endeavor toward solidifying specific actions that will serve as a way ahead for minority health and health disparities research NIH-wide.

I will continue to be steadfast in my role, leading efforts to champion our mission and advance the science even further. Next year, we will commemorate the 10-year anniversary of our designation as an Institute at NIH. We hope you will join us for some of the celebrations. To stay connected, subscribe to our email updates.

NIH announces 10 winners and 2 honorable mentions for the Speaking Up About Mental Health! This Is My Story essay challenge. In an effort to address the disparity in suicide rates among youth and to promote conversations about mental health, NIH invited students ages 16 to 18 to participate in the essay contest, led by the National Institute of Mental Health, Calvin J. Li Memorial Foundation, and NIMHD. "These essays have the potential to motivate other teenagers to address the gaps in mental health care that youth and young adults face, especially those from racial or ethnic minorities, disadvantaged communities, and sexual/gender minorities,” says Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable. Read the winning essays.

NIMHD has funded 3 new awards and renewed the awards of 8 institutions previously funded under the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Specialized Centers program. The RCMI program develops and strengthens the research infrastructure necessary to conduct state-of-the-art biomedical research and foster the next generation of researchers from underrepresented populations. The centers will share approximately $187 million over their 5-year project periods, subject to availability of funds. Read more.

Shelly Enos, M.P.H., learned the basics of hula, the traditional Hawaiian dance form, when she was a little girl on the island of Oʻahu. She didn’t stick with it, but when she joined a class as an adult, the dance felt familiar. “It’s kind of like riding a bicycle. Once you move that way, it comes back.”

The class was not a standard hula class. All of the students, including Ms. Enos, were Native Hawaiians who had high blood pressure. Many had trouble exercising. The teacher welcomed people at any fitness level. “If you had to stop and rest, it was fine. Nobody made you feel embarrassed about it,” says Ms. Enos.

The dancers were participants in a study on using hula to lower blood pressure. It was one of a series of studies showing that hula can help improve heart health for Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders .... Read more.

NIMHD-funded investigators receive Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. #NIMHDResearch

Tyreasa Washington, Ph.D., recipient of the NIMHD Loan Repayment Program and associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Department of Social Work, was recently awarded her first NIH (R15) grant as the principal investigator of the Kinship Care Pilot Study. Her project, "Family's Impact on the Development of African American Children in Kinship Care," has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15—a time to celebrate the contributions and diverse cultures of the American Latino community. For the 2019 HHS Hispanic Heritage Month Observance, Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable’s gave a talk, “Latino Health in the U.S. and the NIMHD Research Agenda.” Watch the video (talk begins at 32:00).

NIMHD is sponsoring a special upcoming issue of Ethnicity & Disease, “Structural Racism and Discrimination: Impact on Minority Health and Health Disparities," to be released on June 24, 2020. 

As revealed in a 2017 workshop co-hosted by NIMHD and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health, there is currently a lack of consensus about how structural racism/discrimination as a construct should be defined, operationalized, and measured in the context of (1) health, minority health, immigrant health, and health disparities research and (2) exposures beyond the interpersonal level to include racism/discrimination occurring at higher levels through societal, community, and organizational values, laws, and policies and corporate procedures, practices, and behaviors. Additionally, there is need for the development, design, testing, and implementation of evidence-based interventions to reduce or eliminate structural racism/discrimination occurring at levels beyond the interpersonal level. Abstract submissions are due September 30.

On September 25, Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable spoke on behalf of NIMHD at a House Committee on Appropriations hearing, Investments in Medical Research at 5 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health. Watch the hearing.

On September 9 and 10, the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities held its 52nd meeting. NIMHD welcomed 3 guest speakers. Fernando S. Mendoza, M.D., M.P.H., professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, spoke on diversity, inclusion, and equity in the biomedical workforce. Alka Kanaya, M.D., professor of internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, shared findings from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study. Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, discussed research opportunities in genomics. View the NIH VideoCast.

Former NIMHD postdoctoral fellow/ Intramural Research Training Awardee and 2017 Coleman Research Awardee Melanie Sabado-Liwag, Ph.D., an assistant professor at California State, Los Angeles, has been selected as a 2018–2020 Faculty Fellow for the Public Good. She is working with community partners and the Center for Engagement, Service, & the Public Good to address social, economic, and health disparities. Read more.

Watch a recently posted article and video featuring the work of the director of NIMHD's Division of Intramural Research, Anna María Nápoles, M.D., M.P.H., with the Nuevo Amanecer study: Valley study shows promising results for Latinas emotionally coping with breast cancer.

On August 19, the Office of Research on Women’s Health hosted a Facebook Live Q&A as part of the Research Spotlight: Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) series. The host speaker, Faustine Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S., Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator at NIMHD, discussed her personal and professional experiences as a woman of color in the biomedical field, how she began conducting research on cancer disparities, notable achievements and obstacles, the importance of mentorship, and other related topics. Participants were encouraged to ask for advice on entering and advancing in biomedical careers.

Read about NIMHD-supported research featured in the NIH Director’s Blog post, "Study in Africa Yields New Diabetes Gene," highlighting support from NIMHD.

Courtney F. Aklin, Ph.D., NIMHD chief of staff, recently interviewed with the National Center for Integrated Behavioral Health. She discussed the most promising strategies for addressing disparities in minority mental health in primary care. Read more.

The United States has the highest rate of deaths for new mothers of any developed country—and 60% of them are preventable. NIMHD grantee and physician Elizabeth Howell, M.D., explains the causes of maternal mortality and shares ways for hospitals and doctors to make pregnancy safer for women before, during and after childbirth. View the TED talk: How we can improve maternal health care—before, during and after pregnancy.

On June 27–28, NIMHD Director Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Director Dr. Gary Gibbons; and NHLBI Division of Cardiovascular Sciences Director Dr. David Goff, visited the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) team in Jackson, Mississippi. The directors met with students and early career investigators and participated in a JHS Steering Committee meeting. They also met with the Jackson community leaders and health advocates as well as JHS institutional leadership. The JHS study is co-sponsored by NHLBI and NIMHD and is the largest investigation of causes of heart disease in African Americans, involving more than 5,300 men and women.

NIMHD is proud and pleased with the commitment to fairness and inclusiveness expressed by NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins, regarding his concern for the lack of diverse scientific leaders participating on panels. His statement underscores the importance of workforce diversity as part of the foundation of a thriving research enterprise. "I am proud that Dr. Collins has taken this public position to address an urgent issue that has often been ignored," says Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable .... Read more.

On June 19–20, the Pathways to Prevention (P2P) workshop was held at the Natcher Conference Center. The conference involved identifying research gaps in a scientific area, identifying methodological and scientific weaknesses in that area, suggesting research needs, and moving the field forward through an unbiased, evidence-based assessment of a complex public health issue. The workshop was co-sponsored by NIMHD; the National Cancer Institute; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI); the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK); and the NIH Office of Disease Prevention. Read the workshop panel report. 

As part of the NIMHD visioning process on life course approaches to causes of health disparities, scientists identified that different perspectives on the life course could be categorized as developmental and structural. Public Health Demography coordinator and professor at Michigan’s Population Studies Center, Dr. Arline T. Geronimus, discusses how these scientists settled on those categories and how researchers could benefit from integrating the two main life course perspectives to promote health equity. Read more.

This blog series includes perspectives from authors of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) supplement, New Perspectives to Advance Minority Health and Health Disparities Research. The supplement highlights strategies to stimulate research for improving minority health and closing the gap in health disparities. The first blog post of this series is by Nancy Jones, Ph.D., M.A, NIMHD scientific program officer.

In 2015, NIMHD began an initiative to create a scientific vision to transform minority health and health disparities. I served as a co-chair for one of the three pillars for the visioning process with several other NIMHD colleagues and guest editor for a supplement of AJPH .... Read more.

David Marion, Ph.D., shares his perspective as a licensed professional counselor with Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., in a recent blog post:

Growing up, in my community, it was frowned upon to ask for help outside of your family. You were forbidden to talk to non-family members about your feelings and especially forbidden to talk about what was going on in your house. There was the inaccurate perception that counseling was for “White folks.” If you needed counseling or medication, that meant to the world you were “crazy,” a layman’s term incorrectly used to label many mental health conditions and challenges. In all my years of counseling, I have never seen the term “crazy” in any diagnostic manual .... Read more.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve the quality of patient care, reduce health care costs, and improve patient treatment outcomes. However, the impact of AI on minority health and health disparities has been largely understudied. NIMHD Legislative Liaison Natasha Williams, Ph.D., J.D., discusses the importance of including minority and underserved populations in AI systems to improve minority health and reduce health disparities. Read more.