NIH Launches Intramural Program at the
National Center on Minority Health and
Health Disparities to Expand Research into
Eliminating Health Disparities

The NIH announced the rejuvenation of the intramural research program at the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD).

The program builds on existing efforts to:

• conduct state-of-the-art research focusing on the relationships between biological and non-biological determinants of health in health disparity populations;
• create training and career development opportunities to nurture intramural researchers focusing on health disparities research including those from health disparity populations; and
• contribute a pool of promising and seasoned investigators to the NIH Intramural Research Program to study the biologic and non-biologic causal pathways of health disparities.

“The factors underlying health disparities are complex,” said Raynard Kington, M.D., Ph.D., acting director NIH. “This intramural research program at NCMHD will be crucial in finding answers and moving the NIH’s health disparities research agenda into the 21st century.”

“From its beginning with the passage of the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act of 2000, NCMHD has led the nation’s minority health and health disparities research enterprise,” said John Ruffin, Ph.D., director, NCMHD. “We feel this rejuvenated intramural research program is the next step in the Center’s evolution at the NIH and a significant step toward achieving our vision of ensuring the health of all Americans.”

The NIH’s Intramural Research Program has played a pivotal role in tackling challenging research questions and applying its expertise in a vast range of areas. Enhancing and focusing the NIH’s health disparities intramural research effort through the NCMHD’s leadership will fulfill a mandate set forth by Congress for the NCMHD:  “the coordination, conduct and support of research, training, dissemination of information, and other programs with respect to minority health and health disparities.”  The intramural research program will be a campus-community system with two major components: a health disparities career development component and the health disparities research intervention component.

The health disparities career development component is a five-year effort that will bring health disparities researchers from the NCMHD pool of Loan Repayment Program graduates to the NIH to gain research experience and training to develop their research careers further. These grantees have received support to pay tuition costs incurred while attaining a M.D., Ph.D., or Dr. P.H. degree.

In the health disparities research intervention component, health disparities research will be based at the NIH campus and within health disparity communities. Under this effort, researchers will study the biologic and non-biologic causes of health disparities.

The NCMHD (http://www.ncmhd.nih.gov) is a component of the NIH. The NCMHD promotes minority health and leads, coordinates, supports and assesses the NIH effort to eliminate health disparities. The NCMHD programs are focused on expanding the nation's ability to conduct research and to build a diverse culturally-competent research workforce to eliminate health disparities.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

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