Rio Grande Valley Cancer Health Disparity Research Center

The Rio Grande Valley Cancer Health Disparity Research Center’s (RGV-CHDRC) Administrative Core (ADC) is designed for the effective management of the day-to-day fiscal, personnel, infrastructure, and productivity of the proposed RCMI center in a seamless and cohesive manner. ADC will foster and promote research

collaborations and core facilities, create a conducive research environment, engage community partners, and facilitate career enhancement activities for post-doctoral fellows and junior investigators. We anticipate that these activities will be crucial for developing successful intervention strategies to eliminate cancer and its associated

chronic diseases and health disparities in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). This core will bring together RCMI center leaders for effective implementation of the center's strategic plan. All administrative and center activities will be monitored and evaluated by the internal and external advisory board (IAB and EAB) members to maximize

efficiency, ensure the center is aligned with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) policies and follow RCMI’s Coordinating Centers assessment procedures. For effective management, ADC will consist of the Multiple Principal investigators

(MPI’s), a Program Director (PD) and staff including a Senior Administrative Analyst (SAA), Program Coordinator, and Evaluator Dr. Javier Cavazos. Members of ADC will meet monthly to review the center’s progress, implement policy/procedures, identify ongoing issues, and provide effective resolutions. This team will

also coordinate with the Office of Sponsored Programs, Contract and Grants, purchasing, travel, community liaisons, academic/administrative offices, the NIMHD program directors and the RCMI Coordinating Center. For the successful implementation ADC proposes the following aims: 1) Establish a communication and

infrastructure platform for health disparity research; 2) Bring together health researchers from a variety of disciplines to work together to develop cutting-edge, transdisciplinary biomedical research; 3) Provide leadership to ensure all milestones and goals are met in a timely manner; 4) Facilitate engagement of researchers through

core facilities and promote career enhancement activities/training programs and scholarly activities; and 5) Evaluate center activities to ensure that all milestones are reached in a meaningful and timely manner. We believe that these activities will position our RCMI center as one of the key resources for highlighting RGV health

disparity research, for the recruitment of new/established health disparity investigators and the development of the minority workforce in the health disparity research. Our proposed RCMI application has potential to reduce cancer and chronic diseases health disparities that exist among minority populations by defining novel biological,

environmental and confounding socio-behavioral factors and develop a health disparity research workforce.