"He that gathereth in SUMMER is a wise son” Proverbs 10:5 KJV

Shaw University M-RISP Minority Elderly Research (SUMMER) Center Renewal
Funding Agency: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Funding Period: 12/01/05-11/30/09
Grant No.: 2 P60 MD000214
Amount of Award: $1,094,055.00
Principal Investigator: Daniel L. Howard, Ph.D.
Associate Director: Sharon Wellman, M. S.
Grant No.: 2 P60 MD000214

The goal of the Shaw University M-RISP Minority Elderly Research (SUMMER) Center is to establish infrastructure support to Shaw University junior-level faculty to conduct health services research on racial disparities among various minority populations by providing training, resources, and mentorship opportunities through collaborative linkages with senior researchers at Shaw and other universities. The Center combines on-going quality health services research, faculty development, and student training in an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to meet the broad objectives of AHRQ M-RISP which are, in part, to help minority institutions and their faculty conduct health services research with respect to the elimination of racial health disparities and to support improvements in health outcomes, strengthen quality measurement and improvement, identify strategies to improve access, foster appropriate use overall, and reduce unnecessary expenditures.

Specifically, the two components of the SUMMER Center are:

1. to establish institutional infrastructure support for research development to strengthen and enhance the capability of Shaw faculty members to undertake health services research; and
2. (2) to support individual investigator research projects focused on the elimination of health disparities which will, in turn, lead to increases in health knowledge and will form the basis for Shaw faculty to become more competitive in extramural research.

The research projects for the Center are:

1. RESEARCH PROJECT 1:  "Examination of the Relationship of Diabetes and Hypertension to the Onset of Eye Disease, specifically Cataracts and Glaucoma, among African Americans"
2. RESEARCH PROJECT 2:  "The Effect of Racial Congruity, Continuity of Care, and Health Care Utilization on Physical Function Among African Americans and Caucasians with Stroke and Diabetes"
3. RESEARCH PROJECT 3:  "Social Constructions of Cultural Meanings and Reasons for Caregiving in African American Families"
4. RESEARCH PROJECT 4:  "Depression Among African-American Elderly in Long-Term Care"

For more information about the SUMMER CENTER, visit the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website.