The purpose of the Center for Health Disparities Research is to bring together core faculty and develop research infrastructure to enhance competitiveness in obtaining extramural research support in health disparities research. The Center will focus on three principal areas where significant health care disparities exist both locally and nationally including health care disparities due to race/ethnicity, disparities due to socioeconomic position, and disparities due to gender. The center will emphasize collaborative research that will build bridges across colleges on campus and across institutions within the state of South Carolina. The center will involve a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the six colleges at MUSC. Core faculty will come from various departments within the college of medicine including the departments of: Additional core faculty will come from the colleges of: The proposed center will collaborate with and complement ongoing health disparities research programs on campus including Partnerships will be developed with other statewide initiatives that have the potential to improve health care disparities including the Diabetes Initiative of South Carolina and the Hypertensive Initiative of South Carolina. The new center will provide an opportunity to develop a cohesive and integrated health disparities research initiative at MUSC that will diversify the current MUSC research portfolio and increase the ability of the university to compete for extramural grants and contracts from NIH, CDC, DHHS, VA, and various research foundations. | 
