The Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities (CEMHD) at the University at Albany is a collaborative effort focused on minority health disparities in New York’s smaller cities and towns.
The reasons for our geographical emphasis are twofold:
CEMHD aims to fill this gap and to initiative and test solutions by:
CEMHD is a partnership among community groups, hospitals, state and county health departments, the State of New York and UAlbany. The Center is housed under the Institute for Social and Health Equity’s umbrella.
Our mission is to contribute to the elimination of minority health disparities in New York’s smaller cities and towns.
The Center aims to:
We work to achieve these goals by partnering with:
Together, we work to identify community health concerns and sources of disparities, plan strategies to alleviate them, and test their effectiveness. Health care providers and other organizations can then adopt these strategies.
We believe that research and intervention concerning minority health disparities should involve communities as partners in defining problems, setting priorities, conducting research, implementing interventions and disseminating research results.
CEMHD was established in 2005 with a $1.25 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) award.
In 2009, CEMHD received an award of $6.8 million through the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Centers of Excellence program. This award established CEMHD as an Exploratory Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities in Smaller Cities.
In 2016, CEMHD received the NIMHD S-21 Endowment award, which created a $10 million endowment over five years to train doctoral students in health disparities research.
In April 2020, the governor of New York commissioned UAlbany to investigate the Differential Impacts of COVID-19 in New York State.
The project focused on the causes of the pandemic’s disparate impact on communities of color and identified potential interventions. CEMHD supported the project’s new research and collaboration ecosystem, which engaged over 35 researchers on our campus.
In Fall 2022, the Institute for Social and Health Equity (ISHE) was created with a $1.7M UAlbany investment. CEMHD is housed under the ISHE’s umbrella.
“Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations," according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
CEMHD is focused on health disparities faced by minorities and underserved populations, such as people of color and low-income families.
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
United States
CEMHD staff are available during the academic year (August to May).