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Overview

Director Alexa Stuifbergen PhD, RN, FAAN, Dolores Sands Chair in Nursing Research, Interim Dean, School of Nursing

Associate Director Lorraine Walker EdD, RN, FAAN, MPH, Luci B. Johnson Centennial Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing

Overview This Center is funded for five years by the National Institute of Nursing Research/National Institutes of Health to promote health promotion and disease prevention research endeavors in underserved populations. This Center thus addresses a major goal of Healthy People 2010: to reduce disparities in health.

Purposes Maintain and enhance the CHPR within the School of Nursing. Improve the health of underserved people through theory driven, efficient and culturally competent health promotion/disease prevention research based interventions. Develop and refine interventions and analytic methods along the continuum of health promotion/disease prevention to meet the needs of underserved populations.   Expand interdisciplinary investigative teams studying health promotion and/or disease prevention. Disseminate and translate methods and findings on health promotion and disease prevention in underserved populations to scientists, clinicians, policymakers and consumers with the use of advanced technology. Explore the application of emerging technologies to promote health and decrease health disparities in underserved populations.

Background Information Healthy People 2010’s second goal of eliminating health disparities focuses on six demographic characteristics where health disparities are identified: gender; race and ethnicity; income and education; disability; geographic location; and sexual orientation. The National Institutes of Nursing Research (NINR) came into being as a result of federal studies recognizing that nursing research was relevant to the mission of the National Institute of Health (NIH). The CHPR is one of 10 core centers with a P30 grant from NINR – others are located at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and University of Washington, among others. Estimates in 2004 were that almost 25% of the population in Texas was uninsured.