A&T, CIHDER Host All of Us HBCU Road Tour on June 29 to Address Health Disparities

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (June 25, 2024) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and its Center of Excellence for Integrative Health Disparities and Equity Research (CIHDER) will host the All of Us HBCU (historically Black college or university) Road Tour on Saturday, June 29.

The event will be from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 107 of Frye Hall (formerly the Academic Classroom Building), 1601 E. Market St., Greensboro. Lunch will be provided during this free, public event, but registration is required and seats are limited. Register online at https://tinyurl.com/yc8jrxtd.

The theme is “From Data to Equity: Telling the Story of North Carolina HBCUs Using the All of Us Dataset to Address Health Disparities.” Presentation and discussion topics will be aligned with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) All of Us Research Program and its Researcher Workbench; how HBCU students and faculty are using the workbench to address health disparities; and what CIHDER is doing to build sustainable and trusted relationships between minority communities and researchers to advance health equity.

Moderators and speakers are Angelo Moore, PH.D., RN, CIHDER executive director; Kristen Rhinehardt, Ph.D., assistant computational science and engineering professor in the N.C. A&T College of Engineering; Dorothy C. Browne, Ph.D., Shaw University senior research scientist; and Al Richmond, MSW, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) executive director.

The event also will feature an interactive panel of researchers from other North Carolina HBCUs as well as a community representative. It will conclude with roundtable engagement with HBCU researchers and community members.

“This is a great opportunity for HBCUs and community members to learn from each other and engage in meaningful conversations and develop solutions that advance health equity,” said Moore. “HBCUs are uniquely positioned in their approach and trust earned from their perspective communities.”

The HBCU Road Tour highlights how HBCUs are using the All of Us dataset for research and community engagement to address health disparities. It also celebrates HBCUs as knowledge-building hubs and to supports faculty and students in their research careers.

CCPH, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions, has teamed with CIHDER to add a new component to the HBCU Road Tour stop at A&T: Incorporating the voices and contributions of minority communities in the Greensboro area, recognizing the important role they play in addressing health disparities.

Host HBCUs are institutions with Institutional Champions who have received grants from the All of Us Researcher Academy. A&T faculty included in the initial cohort of Institutional Champions for the All of Us Researcher Academy are Rhinehardt and Yvonne Ford, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Nursing housed in the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences.

RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, received a five-year award from NIH to participate in a national consortium of organizations supporting the All of Us Research Program in 2020. Two years later, RTI selected N.C. A&T and five HBCUs following a public call for nominations to provide training, technical assistance and peer-to-peer learning for health researchers at Minority Serving Institutions with support from NIH.

CCPH, in collaboration with RTI, is part of the NIH effort to collaborate with HBCUs to encourage use of the dataset. HBCUs have been a primary training ground for researchers of color and have done groundbreaking research on and about minority communities, but often receive less funding and attention.

The All of Us Research Program is building one of the largest biomedical data resources of its kind with health data from a diverse group of participants across the United States, including people and communities who have been underrepresented in biomedical and health-related research in the past. Data include biological factors and social determinants of health on a large, inclusive scale that tracks participants as they move, age and grow. This diverse database, which is a part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, is intended to inform studies on a multitude of heath conditions.

Simultaneously, the NIH is bringing this data together on a single platform, the All of Us Researcher Workbench. The workbench is being made available to diverse researchers across a wide range of settings — particularly those who come from or live within the underrepresented communities that bear a disproportionate burden of disease, and from institutions like HBCUs whose researchers are underrepresented in biomedical research.

CIHDER, housed in the Hairston College, also is hosting the “Building a Better You” community wellness fair in partnership with the Cone Health Center for Health Equity on Saturday, June 29, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. All of Us HBCU Road Tour attendees are invited to participate in the fair, as well.