Features - 2016

Learn about NIMHD extramural and intramural research and programs. Here you'll find recent stories, announcements, and videos about research funded or conducted by NIMHD.

Researchers find genetic variants linked to dangerous blood clots in African Americans

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December 14, 2016 - Researchers have examined the DNA of African Americans and found three new genetic variants that predict whether African Americans are likely to get venous thromboembolism (VTE).

NIMHD Sponsors International Scholars at NIH Genetics and Genomics Summit

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December 7, 2016 - NIMHD supported two researchers from the Caribbean and Latin America to attend the first annual NIH-supported International Summit in Human Genetics and Genomics, held on the NIH campus on September 1–30, 2016.

The National Native American Youth Initiative Visits NIH

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November 23, 2016 - For two days in July, students and staff representing the National Native American Youth Initiative (NNAYI) visited NIH to explore research and careers in biomedical science.

A Social Marketing Campaign Empowers Youth to Combat Type 2 Diabetes

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November 3, 2016 - In recent years, the incidence of type 2 diabetes has dramatically increased among people under age 20, especially among U.S. minority populations. Now, more than 1 in 5 U.S. teens has prediabetes, which suggests that half of them will have type 2 diabetes within 10 years.

Filipino Immigrants Are More Likely to Be Obese the Longer They Live in the United States

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October 24, 2016 - The longer Filipinos live in the United States, the more likely they are to be obese. However, this is only true for Filipinos who came to the United States at a relatively young age, before the age of 30. This is one conclusion of an NIMHD-funded study on the health of this immigrant population.

Cuba is New Site for NIH-Funded Research Training Program

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September 27, 2016 - Cuba is the newest training site for an NIH-funded program that gives U.S. students the opportunity to conduct research in an international setting.

Culture Affects How Hispanic Americans Experience Pain

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September 19, 2016 - Hispanic Americans tend to be more sensitive to pain than Whites. Yet Hispanic Americans report fewer pain conditions such as back pain and arthritis on surveys or questionnaires. These were only a few of the findings from a review article published this year in the Journal of Pain.

Place Matters, Could Segregation Be a Factor for Higher HIV/AIDS Mortality Among African Americans?

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August 15, 2016 - In the late 1990s, Mary Jo Trepka, M.D., M.S.P.H., was the epidemiologist for Miami-Dade County in southern Florida. At the time, HIV/AIDS was more common there than anywhere else in the country. Looking at maps of the area, she noticed a pattern: The poorer neighborhoods had higher rates of HIV/AIDS, as well as other sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis, and African Americans were more likely to die from AIDS than their White counterparts were.

Patient Navigators: The Missing Link to Increasing Minority Participation in Cancer Clinical Trials

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July 20, 2016 - A study conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities has been selected by the American Society of Clinical Oncology to be featured in Clinical Care Advances 2016. The study, led by Mona Fouad, M.D., MPH, director of the UAB Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center, focuses on the use of patient navigators as a liaison between medical staff and patients, to inform and enroll eligible African American cancer patients into clinical trials.

Promise Program Seeks a New Path for Violence Prevention

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July 13, 2016 - The Minority Men’s Health Initiative (MMHI) is studying health problems that disproportionately affect minority men, including diseases such as diabetes and cancer—and violence, which has only recently been recognized as a health disparity comparable to diabetes. Although African Americans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they make up half of homicide victims. Participants attend weekly workshops where they act out real-life scenarios and discuss issues such as black manhood, spirituality, and fatherhood.

E-Learning Products Help Providers Improve Their Medical Bilingual Proficiency

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May 12, 2016 - Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) tend to experience lower quality of care and worse outcomes. Language barriers contribute to poor communication and can impair patients’ ability to access healthcare, understand diagnoses, adhere to treatment, and arrange follow-up treatment. In this Q&A, Bill Tan, founder of Transcendent Endeavors, discusses the development of Canopy e-learning products through an NIMHD Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.

The Center for Asian Health Engages Communities in Research to Reduce Asian American Health Disparities

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May 12, 2016 - On February 23, 2016, NIMHD and the NIH Asian and Pacific Islander American Organization (APAO) co-sponsored a lecture, Health Disparity Research in Diverse Asian American Populations: Present and Future, by Dr. Grace Ma, Associate Dean for Health Disparities, Founding Director, Center for Asian Health (CAH), Laura H. Carnell Professor of Public Health, and Professor in Clinical Sciences at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

Harvard University's Mongan Fellows visit NIH

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April 11, 2016 - The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) hosted the Harvard University Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellows in Minority Health Policy on the campus of the National Institutes of Health on Friday, March 18, 2016. The site visit involved presentations from a range of NIH institutes and centers (IC) program directors in an attempt to appeal to the fellows' different fields of interest.

Former NIMHD Division of Intramural Research Clinical Director Dr. Eddie Reed Honored

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January 6, 2016 - Dr. Eddie Reed, the first Clinical Director for the Division of Intramural Research at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the first African American to serve as Branch Chief at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), was inducted into the 2015 Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, posthumously, on October 17, 2015, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, Ark.