Strategic Goals and Objectives

CHDR | Strategic Goals and Objectives

Strategic Goals and Objectives
The Center has three major strategic goals:
Goal 1: Aggressively pursue extramural research funding in health disparities research. The primary goal of the center is to establish an efficient mechanism for obtaining extramurally-funded research grants and contracts.
	Objective 1.1: Develop a cadre of talented investigators able to sustain an academic research career through independently funded research.
	Objective 1.2: Identify and mentor promising junior faculty, especially underrepresented minority faculty, to develop into regional and national experts in various aspects of health disparities research.
	Objective 1.3: Attain regional and national recognition as a center of excellence for conducting innovative research on health care disparities.
Goal 2: Develop research infrastructure. The center will increase capacity to conduct innovative research with emphasis on health care disparities by developing the following objectives:
	Objective 2.1: Provide grants development assistant to investigators interested in conducting research on health disparities. Center staff will assist faculty across the campus in programming, data mining, data management, and grant writing. Particular emphasis will be placed on analysis of existing data as a source of pilot data for grant applications.
	Objective 2.2: Set up data server and storage systems to retrieve health research data and make it available in a user friendly format to clinical researchers on campus.
	Objective 2.3: Develop new cohort studies and maintain existing research cohorts. The center will strive to facilitate the development of new population cohorts for research such as the Charleston Metro Study and continue existing research cohorts such as Project SUGAR and the Gullah Lupus project.
Goal 3: Strengthen existing community linkages and develop new community research opportunities. A major goal of the center is to build on the successes of effective community outreach programs such as REACH 2010, Project SUGAR, and project EXPORT.
	Objective 3.1: Extend MUSC research in a meaningful way to community health facilities in the Tri-County Area. The intention is to build effective community linkages so as to provide increased access to research subjects.
	Objective 3.2: Conduct community outreach programs and health education programs to increase awareness and foster community relations.
	Objective 3.3: Provide summer research training opportunities for minority students.