Simulation Modeling and Systems Science to Address Health Disparities (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

Program Description

NIMHD is leading a collaborative research effort at the National Institutes of Health with several NIH Institutes and Centers to study health disparities, using simulation modeling and systems science (SMSS). The program seeks to foster transdisciplinary efforts to examine the complex interactions between the causes of health disparities. The program will use SMSS to identify cost-effective ways to address health disparities, provide evidence-based simulations of health disparities interventions, and promote big data harmonization and novel analytic methods in SMSS to address minority health and health disparities.

Health disparities are the differences in health status and outcomes that are observed across different racial and ethnic groups and among underserved populations, including rural and lower socioeconomic status populations. Factors such as neighborhood segregation, food insecurity, and community disempowerment all contribute to health disparities. However, focusing on single independent risk factors often fails to capture the complex ways that different factors influence each other. SMSS provides ways to model complex systems to understand these interactions.

NIH Guide No: PAR-18-331

Page Updated December 14, 2020