Welcome
A Message from the Director
Dr. Kathleen B. Kennedy
The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education (CMHDRE) was established in 2004 to mitigate the disparities that exist in health and health care disparities that disproportionately impact underserved communities with a goal to achieve health equity. The mission of the center is to improve the health outcomes of these diverse communities through community engagement and partnerships in research, education, and practice. For 20 years the center has focused on community engagement and eliminating health disparities. Collaborative research efforts have been established with the Pennington Biomedical Center, Tulane, and LSU through the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Sciences program (LA CaTS), the Research Center for Minority Institutions (RCMI), the Louisiana Cancer Research Center (LCRC) and others. The CMHDRE also established the College of Pharmacy Health and Wellness Center to provide community health screenings and health and nutrition education. Partnerships have been established with many community and faith-based organizations to engage and support the community in a bidirectional manner to impact health outcomes.
To encourage inter-professional collaboration, the CMHDRE organized an annual health disparities conference to address the successful translation of research into effective models of practice to impact policy and to change behaviors in the broader community. With new research on the impact of structural racism on health outcomes, the center has expanded its focus to include the social, economic, and environmental conditions that influence disease burden. These social determinants of health (SDOH) also include income/employment, education, the physical environment, childhood development, and others.
The goals of the CMHDRE are to: 1) foster collaboration with internal and external academic research centers to improve health outcomes; 2) provide a supportive environment that strengthens health disparities research capacity of faculty; 3) develop student-oriented programs to support health disparities research, community engagement and postgraduate education; and 4) advance and sustain meaningful partnerships with diverse communities to address minority health and health disparities through translational and community-engaged research, education and practice.
The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education was established within the College of Pharmacy (COP), through an endowment award from the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Health Disparities Conference
END the HIV Epidemic
The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education (CMHDRE) at Xavier University of Louisiana’s College of Pharmacy is uniquely positioned to address the inequities in HIV care for Black communities in Louisiana. With a mission to improve the health outcomes of these diverse communities through community engagement and partnerships in research, education, and practice, the Center will work collaboratively with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) at Morehouse School of Medicine, both institutions committed to advancing health equity in the Southern United States.
Research shows that inequities drive higher rates of HIV infection, as well as worse HIV clinical outcomes among Black Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted and exacerbated such health inequities, especially in the South. The CMHDRE and the SHLI are at the forefront of efforts to improve access to HIV care for Black communities especially in Louisiana and Georgia.
This collaboration will focus on the barriers that are most prevalent in Black communities including resources and access to care, policies that impact health outcomes, and advocacy needed to address the stigma for people living with HIV/AIDS. With education, collaborative partnerships, adequate resources, advocacy, and community engagement, the CMHDRE believes that LOUISIANA CAN End the HIV Epidemic.