A major new initiative by the University of Maryland aims to eliminate health disparities in the state and extend the impact of health reform. The university's School of Public Health has recruited a team of nationally recognized faculty-researchers who will create action programs to improve primary care and expand public health outreach, so as to reduce the high rates of chronic disease in Maryland's medically underserved communities.
Led by Stephen B. Thomas, the team will open a new Maryland Center for Health Equity as a base for extensive community-level research and outreach focused on reducing disparities. Maryland has the fourth largest concentration of medically underserved racial and ethnic minorities in the nation. In addressing these disparities, the center plans to develop models for use by other states.
Thomas, whose innovative techniques brought health professionals to nontraditional locations such as African American barbershops and beauty salons, will bring his entire team from the University of Pittsburgh to assume tenure-track teaching and research positions at Maryland. This cluster hire represents an unprecedented single investment by the university to address these health issues for the state and amplifies extensive efforts already underway at the School of Public Health.
"This gives us critical mass to advance our commitment of transforming Maryland's health, and it comes just in time to build on the promise of health reform," says Robert S. Gold, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health. "This new Center will complement our current efforts. It puts us on a fast-track and will help extend our reach state-wide."
REDUCING HEALTH INEQUITIES
The center's work will stress evidence-based principles designed to overcome community resistance to medical and public health research, including:
•Action-orientation: research embedded in a community setting designed to produce tangible results and produce a model of best practices;
•Community partnership: working "with" the community, not doing things "to" it;
•Cultural sensitivity: techniques tailored to community needs and realities;
•Team science: a university-wide interdisciplinary approach; health needs and problems confronting underserved communities are too complex for any one field of expertise.
In addition to collaboration with other researchers in the School of Public Health, the center will draw on expertise from a wide range of disciplines, such as engineering, urban planning, sociology, public policy and journalism. Also, it will partner with other University System of Maryland institutions.
"We're focused on action, not talk," says Thomas, whose team has developed an arsenal of community engagement and research techniques to bridge the gap between minority communities and academic health science professionals.
"You'd think that communities lacking the most basic health care would welcome outside help," Thomas continues. "However, the burdens of race and history cannot be ignored. The reality is that we have to build trust and overcome cultural barriers first.
"Our challenge and mission is to find new ways to bring the fruits of health care reform to the underserved, poorly served and never served segments of our community," Thomas says. "We're all in this together, and the people in these communities must be fully engaged as equal partners in establishing a new community-based health infrastructure."
Sandra Crouse Quinn, who will join the School as senior associate dean of public health initiatives, stresses families as a key to success. "Culturally, in African American and Latino communities, it makes sense to focus on families," she explains. "This is where the transmission of social norms and lifelong behaviors begins."
Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and its suburbs, as well as rural parts of Maryland all have communities that can benefit from the center's focus on achieving health equity for everyone, "and we'd be remiss not to try," Thomas adds.
The center will open in the fall and begin extensive collaborative planning for work in communities across the state within a year.
CLUSTER HIRE
The cluster hiring of a cohesive scientific team comprised of tenure and tenure-track faculty is a first for the University of Maryland, and heightens the potential impact of the center. "It brings a team with complementary specialties and a clear track record of research success, and enables us to make a great leap forward," explains Dean Gold. The team's expertise includes: