Director's Message Welcome to the Texas Center for Health Disparities (TCHD), one of the NIH-designated EXPORT Centers. Our center was established in September 2005. Health Disparities among the minorities is an important issue in the 21st century. Your interest in our website suggests you are an individual with concern for the Health Disparities among the minorities. Thank you for taking the time to explore our website and learn about our activities. In 2004, the combined "minority" populations of Texas surpassed the non-Hispanic white population. By the year 2026, the Hispanic population is projected to become the majority population in Texas.

J.K.Vishwanatha, Ph.D.

Published reports on health disparities in Texas have shown striking disparities in the health status, access to health care and risk factors between the racial and ethnic minorities and the general population in Texas. The racial and ethnic minority populations have a higher mortality rate from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, HIV and tobacco-related diseases. In 2000, there were only 41,000 health professionals serving these populations. Thus, there is an urgent need to train a large number of health professionals to serve the minority population in Texas in the near future. Additionally, training all health professionals in recognizing health disparities and educating minority populations regarding the risk factors would greatly alleviate the health disparities that exist currently and are expected to grow in the near future.

In 2005 The National Center on Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) awarded the University of North Texas Health Science Center $7.25 million five year grant entitled "Texas Center for Minority Health, Education, Research and Outreach" to establish and run a comprehensive center of Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and Training (EXPORT). UNTHSC has been a leader among the health science centers in Texas in training minority biomedical scientists and in developing innovative programs specifically tailored to Texas minority populations. As part of our commitment to combat the problem of health disparities and promote educational and training activities for underrepresented minorities, the University of North Texas Health Science Center has established the TCHD.

The center focuses on research in areas where health disparities exist for minorities in North Texas, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, stroke and HIV. A call for applications for pilot projects to be funded through the TCHD was sent out early November. The first round of funded projects began at the beginning of March 2006. We will be periodically highlighting the pilot project on this website.

As part of our Outreach activities, TCHD is organizing an inaugural conference on health disparities June 2-4, 2006 at UNTHSC. The theme of the conference is addressing the status of health disparities in Texas and best practices to eliminate health disparities.

Our faculty and staff are excited about this project and look forward to the opportunities and challenges in our united combat against Health Disparity among minorities. If you have any questions you may contact any of our staff. Once again thank you for your time and do visit us again.