News & Events

Few challenges to the health of our state demand more urgent attention than chronic disease. Heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and related conditions continue to affect far too many individuals and families across Alabama.

The projects represent an investment in neighborhood revitalization and community well-being.

The additional funding will allow LHSA to expand into additional rural areas, starting with Clanton and Oneonta, as well as urban centers like Montgomery. 

The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center convened federal, state, academic, industry, and community leaders on April 15 for its inaugural symposium, bringing together different perspectives to advance community-engaged research efforts across Alabama and the Deep South.

While national and state leaders address population health at scale, community-engaged research takes shape through ongoing partnerships that connect academic expertise with local priorities.

At the Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center, research is grounded in the realities of the communities with which we collaborate. That connection is facilitated by the Partnerships & Engagement Program, a team dedicated to ensuring research is co-created with communities, not just conducted amongst them.

Chronic disease remains one of the most persistent challenges in health care.

The UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center will host its inaugural symposium, “Advancing the Science of Community-Engaged Research to Prevent Chronic Disease and Improve Health,” on Wednesday, April 15, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Behind every successful study is a network of people willing to participate, share their experiences, and contribute to knowledge that can improve health outcomes. At the Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center, that critical connection between investigators and participants is supported by the Participant Access to Research Core (PARC).

A new UAB and Alabama CEAL initiative aims to improve health by empowering neighborhoods.

At the beginning of each year, many people set health-related goals with the best of intentions. Yet within a few months, those goals often fall away. While this pattern can feel discouraging, it is not a failure of motivation or discipline. Instead, it reflects how the brain, as well as our environment, form – and resist – behavioral change.

Dr. Michael Wesley, senior pastor of Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Birmingham’s West End neighborhood, knows how chronic disease affects communities. He deals with it on a very personal level. “I’ve presided over funerals of people who have passed away far more prematurely than they should have because of preventable health issues,” Wesley says.

Access to health care remains one of the most pressing challenges in Alabama’s rural communities. Many residents travel long distances to see a doctor or specialist, and shortages of primary care providers continue to affect both patient outcomes and quality of life.

The University-Wide Interdisciplinary Research Center focuses on the involvement of community members, organizations and patients as partners in research and interventions with a mission to prevent disease and improve health for all.

With a $2.47 million gift from Novo Nordisk Inc., Live HealthSmart Alabama is applying its holistic health model in Selma, Camden, Demopolis and other underserved communities.

With more than 3,300 residents living in East Lake, Live HealthSmart Alabama hopes to encourage a healthier lifestyle by providing safe spaces for them to get outside.

The CLA was made possible with support from Coca-Cola United, whose generous donation of $250,000 funded LHSA’s pilot academy.

Through a generous gift from Novo Nordisk Inc., Live HealthSmart Alabama is beginning to expand statewide, starting in central Alabama with Selma, Demopolis and Camden, while taking steps to make good health simple — one person, one family and one community at a time.

As one of only five universities selected, UAB joins the NIH’s first major program to address how structural and institutional factors of persistent poverty relate to cancer.

The future has much potential as the REACH Up and Out program hopes to continue to make an impact on the lives of Black women in the Deep South.

Live HealthSmart Alabama is continuing to make good health simple with its completion of the new Bush Hills Connection Complex and Urban Garden.

The Healthy Happy Kids program focuses on a different health and physical activity topic each week, encouraging children to make healthier choices.

The designated partners have shown their commitment to their employees by promoting a healthy lifestyle. They encourage employees to take physical activity breaks, offer tips for healthy eating, host health and wellness sessions for team members, and more.

Live HealthSmart Alabama has taken its signature keys — healthy eating, prevention and wellness, physical activity, and education — to create and implement initiatives at all levels within the institution.

The study concluded that participants were hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine due to mistrust, fear and lack of information.

Live HealthSmart’s goal is to improve Alabama’s national health ranking by 2030.

Included in the phase one improvements in the Kingston community is a new mobile market bringing fresh food to the neighborhood.

Fouad’s winning proposal is a comprehensive approach to fixing Alabama’s complex health problems and includes 90 partners on her team from government, business, education and more.

The clinic is an initiative of Building Healthy Communities, a project of the UAB Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center