San Diego State University (SDSU) https://www.sdsu.edu received a $19.9 million award to create a new center for transdisciplinary research on health disparities throughout the San Diego area. SDSU’s “HealthLINK Center” will build collaborative partnerships between the university and community health entities to enhance the research infrastructure at SDSU. Plans are to improve critical health research and services to improve the well-being of the region’s most underserved populations.
NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities https://www.nimhd.nih.gov supports minority serving institutions like SDSU. The university is a federally designated Hispanic-serving institution, and 31.5 percent of first year students are underrepresented minorities.
Along with a $10 million endowment from NIMHD in 2016, the new award will make improved resources available to researchers at SDSU that are working in health, technology, and the biomedical fields.
The bulk of the NIH funding will go to build the university’s research capacity by creating core facilities and resources open to all SDSU researchers. One core facility is a $500,000 clinical research center with a biomedical lab and a physiology lab. The award will fund key personnel such as phlebotomists and data managers to support research and also create repositories to store critical information.
Partner organizations will work closely with SDSU researchers to identify the most effective ways to apply the research to the real-world, such as leveraging data to improve how healthcare and other services are delivered to those most in need.
The SDSU HealthLINK Center will strengthen relationships with key healthcare and public health organizations in the San Diego region, including the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency and two federally qualified health centers.