Health Issues
Centers and Institutes
Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research
Director: Gary J. Young, J.D., Ph.D., Director, Northeastern University Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research, Professor of Strategic Management and Healthcare Systems
The Northeastern University Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research was created to foster interdisciplinary research and education pertaining to health policy and health care delivery. The Center’s faculty consists of outstanding scholars who represent a range of disciplines including business, pharmacy, economics, engineering, law, information science, and organizational behavior. The Center frequently collaborates with health plans, hospitals, physician organizations and other provider organizations within private industry to conduct innovative research studies that can promote the quality, efficiency and accessibility of health care services. The Center is also a forum for developing educational programs at Northeastern University that offer training to individuals who wish to assume leadership positions in the healthcare industry. In addition, the Center offers executive education and training to health care organizations.
Center for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD) - Boston Puerto Rican Health Study
Director: Katherine L. Tucker, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Sciences
The Boston Puerto Rican Health Study at Northeastern University is one of ten Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD) funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This program responds to a strategic priority at the NIH to address disparities and inequities in the prevalence and outcomes of several diseases. The CPHHD program requires transdisciplinary research involving social, behavioral, biological, and genetic research to improve knowledge of the causes of health disparities and devise effective methods of preventing, diagnosing and treating disease and promoting health. A 10.2 million dollars award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH funded the Northeastern University CPHHD. Puerto Rican adults living on the United States mainland have documented health disparities; however, little research has been conducted with this second largest Hispanic subgroup. The Center's long-term goal is to understand the complex interactions of diet and other behavioral and environmental factors, genetics, and psychosocial stress on the high and apparently increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in Puerto Rican adults. The Boston Puerto Rican Health Study is composed of 5 interrelated research projects, centered on an established cohort of 1500 Puerto Ricans, aged 45-75 years at baseline. Projects 1-4 directly build upon data obtained in the first two interview cycles (baseline and 2-year), during the initial 5-year funding period (2003-2009), by adding additional measures in a third 5-year interview. These additional measures include heart disease risk (project 1); additional measures of the social environment and stress (project 2); the role of genetic factors in heart disease risk progression (project 3); and the role of air pollution on heart disease risk (project 4). The center is also conducting a multidimensional community-based intervention focusing on diet and exercise, with consideration of social integration, to reduce heart disease risk (project 5).
Institute on Urban Health Research (IUHR)
Director: Hortensia Amaro, Distinguished Professor of Counseling and Applied Psychology
The IUHR’s seven faculty, three graduate fellows and nine research staff are focusing research on health issues that disproportionately impact urban communities, such as substance abuse, HIV/AIDS prevention and policy, interventions for children diagnosed with asthma, cardiovascular disease behavioral interventions, nutrition behavioral interventions with school age children, traditional Chinese health practices, racial and ethnic differences in service delivery patterns, and brain mechanisms involved in opiate tolerance. The goal of the IUHR is to improve the health of urban populations through the generation of knowledge that informs health policies, disease prevention programs and health services. In its first year of funding, the IUHR received more than $1.4 million in research and training grants and has partnered with the Boston Public Health Commission, Massachusetts Department of Public Health and community health centers. In addition to these agencies, the IUHR’s Advisory Board includes representation from Partners Health Care, Boston Public Schools, Blue Cross/Blue Shield as well as nationally renowned scholars from diverse institutions throughout the country. In 2004, the IUHR hosted the Third International Confernce on Urban Health. Founded in 2002.
National Education and Research Center for Outcomes Assessment in Health Care (NERCOA)
Director: Judith Barr, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice
The mission of NERCOA is to link research, education, and practice in patient-based outcome assessment. The center develops and validates patient-centered methods and surveys that assess the impact of disease and health care interventions on the quality of life of patients. Findings are published in scientific publications and educational monographs, as well as videotapes that have been distributed to health programs in colleges throughout the United States. The center has received $2.4 million in funding from the Bureau of Health Professions and several pharmaceutical companies. Founded in 1991.
Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI)
Chair: Dick Daynard, Professor of Law
PHAI is an interdisciplinary research and advocacy institute created by the Northeastern University School of Law and Graduate Programs in Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. The Institute seeks to increase the legal field’s understanding of public health and help ensure that legal decisions take into account public health goals. It provides co-op opportunities for law students to conduct interdisciplinary research and work with faculty and other professionals on advocacy projects. PHAI’s nine faculty from law and medicine are introducing public health issues into law school curricula (looking at how laws and legal decisions affect the health of populations); advocating for the disclosure of information uncovered in legal proceedings that affects public health (e.g., Ford-Firestone tire cases, tobacco industry liability suits); developing an archive about automobile hazards for public health professionals, attorneys and legislators to use to push the automobile industry to manufacture safer vehicles; publishing articles and filing legal briefs that infuse public health perspectives into public policy deliberations and arguments in important legal cases; and exploring the potential of legal strategies to reduce the food industry’s processing and marketing practices that encourage excessive food consumption and lead to obesity. PHAI was founded in 2001 with a core grant from the Bauman Foundation.