UAB Center for the Study of Community Health (CSCH):  The mission of the UAB Center for the Study of Community Health (CSCH) is to conduct and facilitate research to guide programs and policies that promote the vitality of community health.  Using community-based participatory public health research strategies, the Center partners with UAB investigators and Alabama communities to understand and improve the ecology for 21st century community health.  The Center strives to bridge the gap between public health science and practice in risk reduction across the life span in underserved communities and to determine the benefits of sustained efforts to build community capacity and to reduce risk factors within under-served communities.  The CSCH is the result of a formal merger between the Center for Health Promotion, established in 1993 with the core funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Prevention Research Center (PRC), and the Center for Community Health Resource Development, established in 1973.  Administratively housed in the School of Public Health, the Center currently has 124 appointed faculty representing 44 departments and 10 schools at UAB.

Five operational units serve to meet the goals and objectives of the Center.  The Survey Research Unit (SRU) provides assistance in the design and execution of phone surveys using a 34-station computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system, as well as face-to-face, fax, and mail surveys.  The SRU conducts approximately 40, 000 surveys annually with revenues in excess of $1 million.  The Health Communications Unit combines expertise from faculty and staff in both health communications theory and the technical design and development of video, print, audio, and multi-media theory-based materials.  This Unit is skilled in the design and development of computer-assisted assessment and intervention programs.  The Community Health Resource Development Core (CHRDC), newly established as a result of the merger, brings a thirty year history of community resource development work with communities, agencies and institutions throughout the state.  The CHRDC provides expertise to investigators and communities in infrastructure development, best practice interventions, strategic planning, curriculum development and training, capacity building for community based participatory research in under served populations/communities, and technical support in such areas as program management, needs assessment, focus groups, advocacy, coalition building, etc.  The Computer Data Unit (CDU) was launched in 2005 to provide UAB investigators a heretofore unavailable profile of the communities contiguous to UAB.  The CDU will house a community database of demographics, social perceptions, behavioral trends, and other relevant information critical to community-based participatory research.  The database will be available to any UAB investigator developing community-based and translational research programs and strategies.  A similar program in Mobile has garnered more than $10 million in NIH research funding.  The Community Resilience and Disaster Management Program (CRDMP) is an innovative initiative to empower disadvantaged communities to better meet 21st century health challenges through community-based research and education.  This program will convene a major conference on the theme of community resilience and develop strategy for conducting a comprehensive research program on community resilience that will involve many UAB investigators.

The CSCH currently supports several major research projects:

• The core research project,  Flying Sparks, builds on the Center’s ten-year history of community-based participatory research in rural, isolated, and predominantly African American communities in Alabama’s Black Belt region.  With the assistance and guidance of the Community Participation Board more than 20 communities in six Black Belt counties are part of a trial of community-based health promotion interventions. 
• The  Magic City Stroke Prevention Project, one of three projects funded through the Office of Minority Health, combines community and University leadership to devise a community-wide intervention strategy to reduce stroke risk factors.  These interventions include a variety of educational activities for health care providers and community leaders and residents, as well as community-wide health screenings.
• The  Anniston Health Survey is part of a large CDC-funded effort to better understand the health consequences of PCB exposure in Anniston, Alabama over the past fifty years.  The Survey is the first ever effort to dissect health perceptions from health status in an exposed population. 
• The Special Interest Projects (SIPs) have been made available for competition through the PRCs since 1993.  These awards are funded by many divisions throughout the CDC, as well as other agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Since inception of the PRC program, the Center has received 36 SIPs – the largest number funded by the program.  These SIPs have totaled over $20 million in awards to UAB investigators.

Other projects in the Center include:

·         CARES (Congregations Reaching Out to Empower Survivors), a faith based training initiative for ministers in cancer survivorship issues, funded by the Lance Armstrong Foundation and  the CHA Training and Support Institute, which provides certificate training to CHA model programs (cancer, tobacco, healthy homes, stroke prevention, health ministry programs)  throughout the state.

•  Congregations for Public Health, a faith based 501c3 organization, grew out of a partnership between the Center and the leadership of nine African American churches and supports community based participatory research and service programs focused on health, education, economics and social justice issues in underserved communities.

The Center also collaborates with the Alabama Department of Public Health on a number of research, service, and continuing education initiatives.  One of the major initiatives, SE-RAC, focuses on environmental public health practice in Alabama as well as in 9 other states and 2 territories.