Centers for Population Health & Health Disparities

The purpose of the Centers for Population Health & Health Disparities (http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/populationhealthcenters/cphhd/index.html) (CPHHDs) is to conduct multi-disciplinary, multi-level, integrated research projects with the purpose of elucidating the complex interactions of the social and physical environment, mediating behavioral factors, and biologic pathways which determine health and disease. To achieve this goal, centers support three or more thematically linked research projects, facility cores that support two or more projects, an administrative core, and pilot projects. CPHHDs present opportunities to concurrently study biological, behavioral, psychological, cultural and social precursors of disease.

CPHHDs have created environments conducive to interdisciplinary and reciprocally beneficial collaborations among biomedical scientists, social scientists, and affected communities with the common goal of improving population health and reducing health disparities. A key objective is to generate a research program that embraces the concept of 'multiple levels of analysis' in health sciences to examine factors operating at the social/environmental, behavioral/psychological, and biological (organ system, cellular, and molecular) levels. Centers are engaged in mechanistic and intervention studies across multiple levels of analysis and across diseases and conditions relevant to the mission of the sponsoring institutes.

The NIEHS, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, collaboratively made awards to eight CPHHD centers located at:

• The University of Chicago
• Wayne State University
• The RAND Corporation
• Tufts University
• Ohio State University
• The University of Pennsylvania
• The University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston
• The University of Illinois-Chicago.

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