NIMHD Collaborations

ABCD Study

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study will enroll 10,000+ healthy children and follow them from ages 9 to 10 into early adulthood to understand how children’s experiences affect brain development.

All of Us Research Program

This program will build a diverse group of one million U.S. research participants for the study of precision medicine, an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account the differences in genetics, environment, and lifestyle of individual patients when choosing treatments or developing interventions.

CDC’s Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Program

REACH is a CDC-funded initiative that establishes community-based programs and culturally-tailored interventions to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities or gaps. REACH partners use community-based, participatory approaches to identify, develop, and disseminate effective strategies for addressing health disparities across a wide range of health priority areas such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, breast and cervical cancer, infant mortality, asthma, immunization, and obesity.

Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS)

Health disparities are deeply rooted in structures, systems and policies that create social and economic disadvantage. Launched by the NIH Common Fund, ComPASS aims to develop a new health equity research model for community-led, multisectoral structural intervention research across NIH and other federal agencies. The program develops, shares, and evaluates community-led health equity structural interventions that leverage partnerships across multiple sectors.

Diversity Program Consortium

Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce. The overarching program goal is to develop, implement, assess and disseminate innovative and effective approaches to engaging, training and mentoring students; enhancing faculty development; and strengthening institutional research training infrastructure to enhance the participation and persistence of individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in biomedical research.

The Economic Burden of Racial, Ethnic, and Educational Health Disparities in the U.S., 2018

This study is the first to estimate the economic burden of health disparities for 5 racial and ethnic minority groups and 3 education groups (i.e., adults without a 4-year college degree) at the national level and for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Providing estimates of the economic burden of health disparities could help inform national and state policymakers of where policies and programs are most needed to address and reduce health disparities.

The study was funded by NIMHD and is a collaboration by researchers from NIMHD, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Uniformed Services University, TALV Corp, and National Urban League.

Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program

This program will support research using existing study populations to investigate the effects of environmental exposures — including physical, chemical, biological, social, behavioral, natural and built environments — on child health and development, focusing on respiratory health, obesity, neurodevelopment, and pre-, peri-, and postnatal outcomes.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development’s Add Health Study

This longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the US during the 1994-95 school year has followed the cohort into young adulthood with four in-home interviews, the most recent in 2008, when the sample was aged 24-32. The study combines longitudinal survey data on respondents’ social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic relationships, providing unique opportunities to study how social environments and behaviors in adolescence are linked to health and achievement outcomes in young adulthood.

Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST)

FIRST is an NIH Common Fund program to foster sustainable institutional culture change and inclusive excellence. FIRST will establish a faculty cohort model for hiring, multi-level mentoring and professional development paired with systems to address bias, faculty equity and work/life issues. The FIRST Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC) will evaluate impact at faculty and institutional levels; departmental and institutional culture change; and establish initiative-wide metrics of faculty success, recruitment and professional development at pre-tenure career stages.

HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study

This longitudinal study will recruit a large, diverse cohort of pregnant women to enhance our understanding of prenatal and early brain development from infancy through childhood, focusing on normal, healthy development and the effects of exposure to opioids or other adverse environmental exposures (e.g., stress, SARS-CoV-2).

Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL)

HCHS/SOL is a long-term, multicenter study of Hispanic/Latino health and diseases in the United States. The study aims to determine the number of people with heart and lung diseases in various Latino heritage groups and identify risk and protective factors within these groups.

Jackson Heart Study

The Jackson Heart Study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and NIMHD, is the largest investigation of causes of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in an African-American population, involving 5,300 men and women in Jackson, MS. It is uniquely positioned to investigate CVD risk factors, especially manifestations related to hypertension such as coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke, peripheral arterial disease, and renal disease.

National Institute on Aging’s Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span

This research program aims to understand the sources of persistent health disparities in overall longevity, cardiovascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease. By posing fundamental questions about differences in rates and risks for pathological conditions associated with aging, researchers hope to disentangle the relationship between race, socioeconomic status, and health outcomes. Using mobile medical research vehicles, which serve as community-based platforms for clinical research, researchers are creating effective methods for recruiting and retaining non-traditional research participants into age-related clinical research.

National Institute on Aging’s Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research

The Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research mission is to decrease health disparities by: increasing the number of researchers who focus on the health of minority elders; enhancing the diversity in the professional workforce by mentoring minority academic researchers for careers in minority elders health research; improving recruitment and retention methods used to enlist minority elders in research studies; creating culturally sensitive health measures that assess the health status of minority elders with greater precision; and increasing the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve their health and well-being.

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases’ Osteoarthritis Initiative

The Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) is a multicenter, longitudinal, prospective observational study of knee osteoarthritis (OA). This Initiative is a public-private partnership between the NIH and private industry that seeks to improve diagnosis and monitoring of OA and foster development of new treatments. The overall aim of the OAI is to develop a public-domain research resource to facilitate the scientific evaluation of biomarkers for osteoarthritis as potential surrogate endpoints for disease onset and progression.

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research’s Centers for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health

This research program aims to understand and eventually eliminate health disparities in dental caries and oral/pharyngeal cancer through collaborations among teams of investigators from diverse disciplines and background in partnership with communities. The Centers for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health are located at Boston University, the University of California, San Francisco, University of Colorado at Denver, the University of Florida, and the University of Washington.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Sister Study

The Sister Study examines the environmental and genetic risk factors for breast cancer and other health issues in women, as well as factors that influence quality of life and outcomes after breast cancer diagnosis. From 2004 to 2009, more than 50,000 women across the US and Puerto Rico, who were between ages 35–74 and whose sister had breast cancer, joined this landmark research effort to find causes of breast cancer. Because of their shared environment, genes, and experiences, studying sisters provides a greater chance of identifying risk factors that may help us find ways to prevent breast cancer.

National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Bridges to the Future Training Programs

Research training programs that aim to increase the number of community college/ master’s degree students from underrepresented groups and/or populations experiencing health disparities who transfer and complete the baccalaureate/PhD degree, respectively, in biomedical and behavioral sciences.

NIH-ACMG Fellowship in Genomic Medicine Program Management

This fellowship seeks to increase the pool of health practitioners who manage research and implementation programs in genomic medicine.

NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL)

CEAL is an NIH network that works with communities and community-based organizations to build trust in public health research. Through these collaborations, CEAL identifies promising engagement and outreach practices for delivering credible, science-based information to populations experiencing health disparities. CEAL regularly releases online news articles and reports on its impact: https://nihceal.org. NIMHD co-leads this initiative with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

NIH UNITE

As a key part of its mission, NIMHD promotes and supports the recruitment and training of a diverse workforce. UNITE acts as a think tank to promote equity, generate bold ideas, and catalyze new actions that spur widescale systemic change. It facilitates activities to identify opportunities, make recommendations, and develop and implement strategies to address any structural racism that may exist within NIH and throughout the biomedical and behavioral workforce.

NIMHD-NIDDK-Rwandan Health Program

This program is a collaborative effort between NIMHD, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the Rwandan Ministry of Health to help build an NIH-trained research workforce in Rwanda. The fellows are physicians who spend a year at NIH and then return home as clinician scientists to conduct research and help improve health of Rwandans.

PhenX Social Determinants of Health Assessments Collection

This collection contains the addition of 19 protocols for social determinants of health (SDOH), which expands upon the previous SDOH collection to help measure upstream factors that shape health behaviors and health outcomes. This open-access resource provides standard SDOH measures to better understand causes of health inequities and enable effective interventions to reduce disparities.

PregSource - A Crowdsourcing Project to Better Understand Pregnancy

The project will explore physical and emotional aspects of pregnancy, labor and delivery and will identify distinct challenges faced by subgroups of women, such as those with physical disabilities. By offering a more comprehensive picture of the pregnancy experience—from normal pregnancies to those complicated by disease or other factors—PregSource promises to inform strategies for improving maternal care in the United States.

Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics–Underserved Populations (RADx–UP)

NIHMD plays a leadership role in RADx–UP, a community-engaged initiative to quickly respond to excess morbidity and mortality impacting population groups disproportionately affected by COVID-19. RADx–UP is part of NIH's multifaceted and agency-wide innovative technology efforts to make more rapid COVID-19 tests available, accessible, and easier to use for all Americans.

RESPOND Study

The Research on Prostate Cancer in Men of African Ancestry: Defining the Roles of Genetics, Tumor Markers, and Social Stress (RESPOND) is the largest coordinated research effort to study biological and non-biological factors associated with aggressive prostate cancer in African-American men. RESPOND is supported by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. More Information

U.S. Life Expectancy Health Disparities

This study aimed to produce detailed estimates on U.S. life expectancy by race and ethnicity for population groups most impacted by health disparities. Disaggregating data at the county level will uncover health disparities that are not visible using national- or state-level data. This will facilitate a more tailored approach to address the root causes of health disparities, reduce health disparities, and improve the health of all Americans. The study was funded and led by NIMHD and NIH in collaboration with researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine.