Health Across the Lifecourse (HEAL)

To optimize health and wellness in Alabama and beyond, it is imperative that we facilitate research focused on the prevention, screening, and treatment of disease.

This includes accounting for contextual factors encountered by individuals and populations across the lifecourse, and relative to their healthcare needs, preferences, values, and beliefs. From precision medicine to population health, UAB investigators are conducting research to understand how an individual’s background, physical environments, social environments, healthcare systems, and societal structures impact healthcare access, options, and outcomes. We are partnering with people, communities, and organizations to access and analyze biological, clinical, behavioral, social, and economic data and apply technological, methodological, and analytic innovations to catalyze discoveries from the bench to the community. The dissemination of these discoveries informs practice and policy ensuring the opportunity for every individual to achieve their highest level of health.

Vision

The HSOM Health Across the Lifecourse (HEAL) catalyzes research to improve health at every stage of life so that everyone can achieve their full health potential

A Lifecourse Approach

A Lifecourse Approach considers the cumulative impact of circumstances, events, and experiences across different stages of one’s life. While our unique genetic makeup shapes everything from our height and eye color to our risk of experiencing diseases like sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and cancer, a host of factors over the lifetime influence our health. Precision Population Health uses data-driven approaches to incorporate individual genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors for tailored population-level prevention, screening, and treatment of disease. HEAL: A Precision Population Approach is particularly salient in Alabama, where rural hospital closures and limited availability of primary, maternal, and mental healthcare impose formidable challenges to health and healthcare delivery for populations with a high burden of disease. It is imperative that we move beyond describing differences in rates and severity of disease to understanding their underlying drivers and mechanisms and implementing multilevel interventions so that everyone can achieve their full health potential.

Precision Population Health

Data-driven approaches (qualitative & quantitative) to incorporate individual genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors for tailored population-level prevention, screening, and treatment of disease and promotion of health.

Goals

1. Advance scientific understanding of the multilevel pathways and mechanisms of health outcomes across multiple disease conditions through basic, behavioral, clinical, implementation, and community-led research.

2. Develop and improve scientific methods, measures, and tools that support HEAL research.

3. Develop, screen, evaluate, and disseminate multilevel interventions that promote HEAL priorities.

4. Leverage health system data to inform HEAL initiatives and achieve the UAB Medicine vision “to be the leader in improving the health and lives of all we serve.”

5. Translate HEAL knowledge to practice to enhance individual healthcare access and outcomes while improving population health indices.

Foundational Research Methodologies

• Genetic / Genomic Medicine – data-driven integration of individual’s genome into health care decisions
• Mixed Methods Research – integration of rigorous qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Epidemiological Research – the study of the distribution of health-related conditions in populations
• Decision Science – use of quantitative methods to inform individual or population preferences
• Clinical Trials, including Behavioral and Multilevel Intervention Trials – traditional and novel (e.g., adaptive) trial designs to provide “gold standard” efficacy evidence
• Health Services and Outcomes Research – the study of the multilevel factors affecting health care access, quality, cost, and outcomes; include observational & interventional (“effectiveness”) designs
• Implementation Science – the study of strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practices
• Dissemination Science – the study of processes that facilitate the distribution and communication evidence-based practices 
• Community Research – engagement with patients, health systems, public health, and community groups by healthcare practitioners and policymaker

Programs

The following programs, projects, and partnerships are examples of how we are accomplishing this research focus area’s mission:

• UAB Comprehensive Healthy Living Research Center (CHLRC) is where research meets the real world to prevent disease and improve health. The Center advances community-engaged research, provides professional development, and delivers practical solutions for healthy living.

• Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) leverages its Partner Network to speed up the discovery, translation, dissemination, and implementation of new findings. This effort aims to provide treatments faster, lessen chronic disease burdens, and promote health in the Deep South and beyond.

• Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship (ICOS), founded in 2015, is reducing the burden of cancer and its long-term effects across all segments of the population, through interdisciplinary research, health promotion, and education, envisioning a world where cancer survivors live long and healthy lives.

• Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research supports the training and conduct of rigorous person-centered outcomes research, spanning the health system, community, and population health settings by offering training and enrichment programs, and facilitating networking and collaboration.

• Mary Heersink Institute for Global Health’s goal is to improve overall health and functional well-being and promote equity in health outcomes among people around the world. It will present a coordinated, comprehensive, and sustainable infrastructure to mitigate the most pressing and complex global health challenges.

• Center for Women’s Reproductive Health is one of UAB’s signature endeavors with the mission to conduct research aimed at improving the reproductive health and survival of all women, especially minority and under-served women and their families.

• Center for AIDS Research supports cutting-edge HIV basic, clinical, and behavioral research by offering services and expertise to any researcher interested in HIV or related areas.

• Center for Engagement in Disability Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is part of the UAB-Lakeshore Foundation Research Collaborative and carries the distinction of being a member of the UAB University-Wide Interdisciplinary Research Centers (UWIRC) program. The mission of this program is to accelerate and implement scientific discoveries, technological advances, behavioral practices, and social norms that will allow people with disabilities to increase their overall quality of life.

Task Force Members