Gaps in health outcomes exist between the general population and groups of people who experience systematic obstcles to health based on their race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic location, or other characteristics linked to exclusion. Nowhere are such health gaps more evident than in the Mid-South, home to some of America's poorest communitities which carry an exceptionallyt heavy burden of obesity, chronic diseases, and high mortality rates.
The Mid-South Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center for Health Disparities Research (Mid-South TCC), is a partnership of academic and community partners working to reduce the disparities in chronic disease burden experienced by minority populations in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
This consortium investigates the social, economic, and environmental factors driving and sustaining health disparities in obesity and chronic illnesses across the lifespan; determines pathways to obesity and chronic disease and mechanisms connecting these pathways to health disparities; and implements interventions to address the social determinants that impact health and dispariate health outcomes.
The Mid-South TCC has provided the following enabling platforms for:
- Team science, a multi-disciplinary, systems approach to a complex problem
- Targeted mentored research and career development for young investigators
- Training of health professionals to address the social determinants of health
- Collaboration among multi-sectorial stakeholders
- Academic-Community infrastructure to accelerate the translation of findings
- Dissemination that facilitates uptake of research
The Mid-South TCC Delivers An Integrative Systems Approach
We work across domains: biological, behavioral, environmental, socio-cultural, health system;
We work across levels of influence: individual, interpersonal, community, systems, social;
We collaborate with multi-sectorial stakeholders and partners;
To address contributors to health disparities in an integrated, multidisciplinary way.
The Mid-South TCC has 49 investigators in 18 Scientific Disciplines and 6 Branches of Science
Basic Science: Molecular Pathology, Exercise Physiology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Genetics
Clinical Science: Nutrition Science, Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Cardiology, Pediatrics, Oncology, OB/Gyn, Surgery
Research Methodology: Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Applied Statistics
Public Health: Health Education/Promotion, Health Behavior, Health Management, Health Economics, Epidemiology
Behavioral Science: Behavioral Neuroscience, Psychology
Social Science: Sociology, Demography, Urban Studies
