Grants Help Set Up Minority Health Office, Support Health Disparities Research; Workshop Focuses on Black Women and Breast Cancer

• Akron, Ohio, Health Department: The Ohio Commission on Minority Health has given the department an $83,000 grant to establish a new Office of Minority Health in Akron. The new office will aim to discover variations among blacks and whites in terms of health behavior. The office also will work with community groups that focus on social, economic, cultural or educational issues as they relate to health (Wheeler, Akron Beacon Journal, 12/27/07).
  
  
• Breast cancer workshop: The Center on Health Disparities Research at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University's School of Nursing on Thursday held a workshop to discuss black women's higher risk of breast cancer and mortality from the disease. The center is a grant-funded program that looks into health disparities among different demographics and is run by the nursing schools at A&T and Johns Hopkins University. Sandra Millon Underwood, an oncology nursing professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was the keynote speaker (Alexander, Greensboro News & Record, 1/3).
  
  
• Morgan State University: The historically black college, based in Maryland, this month started a new nursing program that officials hope will help reduce the state's nursing shortage, particularly among black nurses. The program offers concentrations in nursing education or leadership for nurses interested in management positions. In the fall, the program will add bachelor's and doctoral degrees in nursing (Volkmann, Baltimore Examiner, 1/2).
  
  
• University of Hawaii School of Medicine: NIH's National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities has given the university a five-year, $7.3 million grant to establish the Center for Native and Pacific Health Disparities Research. The center will expand upon early research by the university's Department of Native Hawaiian Health and look into health disparities including obesity, heart disease and diabetes among Native Hawaiians and others in the Pacific (Honolulu Advertiser, 1/1).
  
  
• Virginia State University: The school has received a $4 million grant from NIH's National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to support the Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions program at the school. The program aims to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities by boosting science research and the number of minority students and faculty members in the biomedical science field. The grant will support research into genetic components of diabetes, genetic mutations and protein deposits in Alzheimer's disease, and genes associated with resistance to parasitic infections (Hostetler, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12/24/07).