The School of Rural Public Health is home to many dedicated research centers and programs which serve to unify and focus the faculty; diverse research interests under key research areas such as community health development, prevention research, aging, long term care, reproductive health, rural public health preparedness, and rural health policy, to name a few. These programs and centers are integral in promoting, facilitating, and fostering collaborative research efforts internally and externally. We invite you to visit each of the centers listed below:
Center for Community Health Development
Southwest Rural Health Research Center
USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness
Center for Health Organization Transformation
Information on research programs can be found here.
Center for Community Health Development
PI: Kenneth McLeroy, PhD
Director: James Burdine, DrPH
Assistant Director: Monica Wendel, MA, MPH
Organizational Location: HSC
BOR Approved Center May 26, 2005
Phone: 979/ 458-0937
Link to Center website
Established in 2001, and subsequently designated as a Regents approved Center in 2005, The Center for Community Health Development (CCHD) is a CDC-funded Prevention Research Center that supports prevention research and training on methods for improving population health status. Building upon community-based participatory research methods and a strategy of community health development, CCHD goal is to help increase local communities; capacity to meet the health needs of their residents.; Thus the Center works with local community organizations through the Brazos Valley Health Partnership to address specific community health issues, such as diabetes self-management and the prevention of obesity. Through its systematic examination and evaluation of community health development strategies, the CCHD will contribute to the national research agenda related to population health status improvement, with specific focus on minorities, rural and border residents, and the working poor emphasizing the translation and dissemination of established prevention strategies.
Southwest Rural Health Research Center
Director: Jane N.Bolin, RN JD PhD
Associate Director: Robert Ohsfeldt, PhD
Organizational Location: HSC-SRPH
BOR Approved Center July 22, 2005
Phone: 979/ 862-4238 or 845-2387
Link to Center website
Overview:
The Southwest Rural Health Research Center was established in 2000 as one of only six federally funded research centers by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. The center focuses on conducting policy relevant research on meeting the needs of special rural populations, minority populations and health disparities (including border populations), and rural systems building. Research projects have focused on chronic disease management, mental health and substance abuse services, community health workers (promotora), medical policy, quality differences in rural and urban nursing homes and assisted living centers, professional shortages, mental health and substance abuse services, and the development of Rural Healthy People 2010: A companion document to Healthy People 2010.
USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness
Director: Barbara Quiram, PhD
Organizational Location: HSC
BOR Approved Center May 23, 2007
Contact: 979/ 845-2387
Link to Center website
Overview: Established in July 2005, The USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness is one of 27 CDC funded Centers for Public health Preparedness. The CDC programs are designed to ensure public health professionals are able to respond to threats to the nation’s public health. The new USA Center at SRPH is the only center with a specific rural focus and is charged with supporting and developing the skills and competencies of emergency responders in rural areas of the United States. The USA Center is one of a number of programs under the Office of Special Programs at SRPH aimed at translating the school;s mission of improving the health of underserved and rural populations into practice by cultivating long term relationships with public health agencies, communities, and other universities. Specifically, the Office of Special Programs focuses on improving the rural public health infrastructure via building relationships at the local, regional, state, and national level and improving competencies in the public health workforce via training and development.
The Center for Health Organization Transformation
Director: Larry Gamm, Ph.D.
Organizational Location: HSC
BOR approval: May 22, 2009
Contact: 979/845-2387
Link to Center Website
The Texas A&M HSC School of Rural Public Health and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology are university sites for a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and health system supported Center for Health Organizational Transformation (CHOT). A number of progressive health systems from Texas and the Southeast are currently participating. Other health systems may soon join.
Texas A&M HSC's expertise in health care management and IT combined with industrial engineering and IT expertise at Texas A&M's and Georgia Tech's Colleges of Engineering are at the core of research work with the health systems. The CHOT addresses implementation of information technology, Six Sigma, Toyota's LEAN, Studer's Hardwiring Excellence, cultural change, quality and safety, chronic disease management, and possibly other evidence-based management and/or major clinical change initiatives. The universities' research faculty and graduate students team with health system professionals to pursue research projects selected each year by the CHOT health system members who serve as the health tranformation leaders on the CHOT advisory board.
