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Summary of Recommendations
1. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), through the National Center on
Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) and the Institutes and Centers
(ICs) and, when appropriate, collaborating agencies, should undertake research to
further refine and develop the conceptual, definitional, and methodological issues
involved in health disparities research and to further the understanding of the
causes of disparities.
2. The NIH director should assure that the Strategic Plan is reviewed and
revised annually using an established, trans-NIH process subject to timely re-
view, approval, and dissemination.
3. The Strategic Plan research objectives should promote more integration
of research on the multifactorial nature of health disparities, including non-
biological factors; population research to further the understanding of the pres-
ence, prevalence, trends, and other elements of health disparity conditions; and
when opportunity exists, an understanding of the causes of disparities in health
care.
4. The Strategic Plan should include measurable targets and time periods
for the research capacity objectives. NIH, through NCMHD's oversight, should
develop methods of measuring, analyzing and monitoring the results of programs
that address research capacity, including workforce, institutional, infrastructure,
and community-based participatory health disparity research objectives.
5. The Strategic Plan's communication programs should be organized as a
specific trans-NIH effort with centralized coordination with particular attention
to the strategic planning, design, prioritization, implementation, and evaluation
of efforts across NIH. The initiative should: be informed by advisory expertise;
develop a surveillance system to identify information needs and availability,
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sources, behaviors, and use patterns; and promote attention to the issue of in-
equalities in health communication.
6. The development of updated Strategic Plans should include assessments
of the appropriateness of the individual strategic plans of the ICs, including
whether they adequately reflect the overall goals and objectives of the NIH
Strategic Plan.
· Objectives should be time-based and targeted with measurable outcomes.
7. NCMHD should consider the designation of additional health disparity
groups based on an informed process and developed criteria. It should promote
development of, and access to, a registry of diseases and conditions for which
disparities exist with regard to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic
locale, and other designated health disparity populations.
8. Within NIH, a clear and timely budget process should be linked to the
Strategic Plan, and it should be updated in a timely manner. Annual budgets should
include information for NIH as a whole, and for each involved IC and office, and
should detail allocations for the Strategic Plan goal areas and each objective. Trans-
NIH budget information on efforts made in the major categories of research, re-
search capacity, and communication also should be made available.
9. The NIH director should review and assess the administrative staffing of
NCMHD to assure that it is sufficient to attend to the Center's responsibilities.
· Increasing the science leadership and presence within NCMHD should be
pursued by the NIH and NCMHD directors. This entails the appointment of
additional eminent scientists, recognized in the areas of minority health and
health disparities, and the establishment by NCMHD of committees and panels
with relevant expertise from within and outside NIH.
10. The NIH director, through the established authority of the NCMHD
director, should assure continuous, effective coordination of the health disparities
research program across the NIH including:
· Timely development of Strategic Plan revisions;
· Effective, ongoing participation of the ICs in the Strategic Plan and the
health disparities research program.
· Establishing appropriate committees involving the directors of the ICs
and others to facilitate collaboration and coordinated approaches to health dis-
parities research and the setting of priorities;
· Fostering of conferences and the use of committees and panels involving
the NIH, extramural scientific communities, and others to inform and advise on
initiatives and directions; and
· Monitoring of the execution of the Strategic Plan to ensure that its ele-
ments are implemented.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
percent minority
