NYU Langone Health received a $13 million grant to create a national center for Type 2 diabetes research alongside two other institutions, which will be “the first of its kind.” The grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases will fund the center for five years, and programming will begin this fall, according to the center’s co-leader, Nadia Islam.

The center, which has been named the Center for Engagement in Diabetes Equity Research, will draw from “evidence-based interactions” in an effort to understand how diabetes impacts different marginalized groups. The American Diabetes Association will co-lead the center’s administration.

“Our previous work has focused on how to better link communities to evidence-based diabetes prevention and management programs and treatments in ways that are culturally and socially responsive,” Islam, who is also the associate director for community education at NYU Langone’s Institute for Excellence in Health Equity, wrote in a statement to WSN. “We conducted much of our research in partnership with community based organizations, community leaders and community health workers, who emphasized the critical need to engage communities in the development and implementation of research in order to maximize its impact.”

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Health System and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles will also help create the center, which received its funding at the end of September 2023. According to Islam, each of the three academic institutions will be responsible for a “core” of the center alongside a community partner. 

UCLA will lead the community and collaboration engagement core with the University of California, Irvine and Visión y Compromiso, a nonprofit aimed at improving health in underrepresented communities that is based in Los Angeles. The Albert Einstein College of Medicine will lead the consultation core with Health People, a South Bronx-based community health organization.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently found that Black people were twice as likely to die from diabetes compared to white people in 2019, and two and a half times as likely to be hospitalized.

“To reduce diabetes-related disparities, we must authentically prioritize community concerns and strengthen the trustworthiness of our academic and healthcare systems,” Earle Chambers, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in a press release announcing the center. “By ensuring our community partners join us as equals, with a real leadership role in creating new intervention strategies, we have a significantly greater chance of developing approaches that meaningfully influence behaviors and reduce racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in Type 2 diabetes in this country.”

Contact Maisie Zipfel at [email protected]