Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center
Arizona State University
The Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center generates use-inspired knowledge and interventions on social and cultural determinants of health in partnership with communities of the Southwest. It seeks to prevent, reduce and eliminate health disparities. In 2017, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health awarded the center it's largest ever research grant establishing a U54 Specialized Center of Excellence. The award funds research to advance knowledge on how to prevent substance abuse disorders and cardiometabolic disease in Southwest communities most affected by health disparities.
The Center supports two main research projects. The first, Families Preparing the New Generation PLUS, promotes healthy nutrition and prevents substance use among Latino youth by adding nutrition-based content to an original parent intervention program. The second is a follow up to the Every Little Step Counts program, a culturally-grounded diabetes prevention intervention that focuses on sustaining healthy behavior changes through nutrition and fitness classes delivered to obese Latino adolescents and their families. The U54 grant includes a communication component to reach targeted audiences with information that helps improve the well-being of children and their families in the Southwest. The grant also supports the development of early career scholars interested in research that addresses health disparity causes and solutions.