DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is for a NIMHD Exploratory Center of Excellence (P20) grant for a 5 year competitive renewal of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities' Center of Excellence (COE) at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). Renamed as the NCCU Center for Translational Health Equality Research, this Center will integrate and centralize ongoing minority health and health disparities research into a single interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary enterprise and establish novel effective partnerships with organizations and communities for conducting basic and translational research that ultimately results in positive transformations in minority health and elimination of health disparities. The Center will be committed to focus on minority health and specifically on the higher prevalence of cardiometabolic risk in minorities that result in morbidity and mortality rates in excess of the general U.S. population. The Center will be operated via four cores: 1) Administrative; 2) Research; 3) Research Training and Education; and 4) Community Engagement and Outreach. The Research Core will oversee 2 full projects as described in the grant application, while fostering novel transdisciplinary partnerships with investigators from Nursing, Public Health, Computer Science, Education and community organizations serving the medical needs of minority populations. Finally, the Community Engagement and Outreach Core will conduct studies on a rural medically underserved minority population in North Caroling to explore the role of factors, such as community health-promoting infrastructure and interpersonal relationships, in positively and continuously affecting trajectories of type 2 diabetes progression in this community. These pioneering community engagement projects will be pivotal in assessing optimal strategies for disease management and participation among minority communities to improve cardiometabolic health and eliminate health disparities. Overall, the NCCU Center for Translational Health Equality Research will exemplify a center of research excellence through the assimilation of innovative multidisciplinary basic and translational research that promotes minority health and reduces health disparities, exemplary research training and education that increases the number of meritorious researchers from minority and medically underserved populations, and pioneering Outreach studies that actively engages a rural minority community in effective and sustainable activities for improve community health and better disease management.

RELEVANCE (See instructions): Obesity, hypertension, and diabetes disproportionately affect African Americans. Sustainable changes in diet and behavior can help to reduce these diseases. This application aims to find ways to promote long-term diet quality and glucose control.