Igniting Hope in Buffalo New York Communities: Training the Next Generation of Health Equity Researchers

Buffalo, New York, the second largest city in New York State (population 278,349), has a diverse population, including 37% African American and 14% Latinx. One of the most pressing problems in metropolitan Buffalo is race-based health inequities, a condition shared with many American metropolitan areas. The life expectancy of

African American residents of Buffalo is 10 to 12-years shorter compared to White residents of Buffalo. African Americans are 300% more likely to have chronic, often preventable, diseases than Whites who live in Buffalo. In response to this crisis, in 2014, a group of visionary community leaders created the African American Health

Equity Task Force, which includes leaders and stakeholders from multiple sectors of the Buffalo community, including faith leaders, community non-profits, healthcare providers, payers, University at Buffalo (UB) faculty and more. The Task Force has met monthly since 2015 and led to the formation of three new organizations,

including the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute (2019), the community-based Buffalo Center for Health Equity (2019) and the Erie County Office of Health Equity (2021). Leaders of these three organizations continue to meet monthly as part of the Task Force. This community-university-government partnership has

enormous reach and influence throughout the community, positioning us to disseminate research findings and work with policy makers and community stakeholders to promote sustainable community- and system-level change. The mission of our NIMHD Center of Excellence in Investigator Development and Community

Engagement is to train and develop the next generation of health disparities investigators to perform innovative research in minority health and health disparities in partnership with our community and to the benefit of the community. The Center of Excellence will be embedded in the UB Community Health Equity

Research Institute, which includes faculty from all 12 UB schools, creating a transdisciplinary framework that cuts across scientific and organizational silos to integrate disciplines to address the full range of social determinants of health and to mentor early-career investigators in research in health disparities. Our Center of

Excellence will inspire, train, and mentor a new generation of scientists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to perform innovative research in health disparities and advance their careers (Aim 1). We will nurture our enduring community-university partnerships to perform transdisciplinary research to develop and test innovative

solutions to end race-based health inequities in Buffalo (Aim 2). Finally, we will advance equitable collaborations with community partners to translate our research into sustainable, community and system-level changes toward eliminating race-based health inequities in Buffalo (Aim 3). Our enduring community-university-government

partnership a strong foundation for an NIMHD Center of Excellence will be an exceptional advance in our environment to train and mentor a new generation of researchers to perform research that will create sustained improvements in health outcomes in African American communities in Buffalo and the nation.