National Center on Minority Health and Disparities Awards Grant to Cambridge Health Alliance .

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October 11, 2007

National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities Awards Grant to the Collaboration Between University of Puerto Rico-Cambridge Health Alliance Research Center of Excellence

Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Revere, Somerville, Winthrop, MA - Dennis D. Keefe, CEO of Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is excited to announce funding from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) for the University of Puerto Rico-Cambridge Health Alliance Research Center of Excellence. The grant was awarded to further work led at CHA by Margarita Alegría, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at CHA and Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.

Keefe said he was pleased to share news of this award and knows it will help with the mission of the Center: "This will help to generate innovative mental health services research that impacts policy, practice, and service delivery for multicultural populations," Keefe said.

Jack D. Burke, MD, MPH, Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at CHA and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and CEO Keefe recruited Dr. Alegría to come to CHA in 2002: "Dr. Alegría leads an interdisciplinary group of psychologists, social policy analysts, health economists, psychiatrists, data analysts, sociologists, and other professionals who assist in the research and analysis of Center projects. This new grant will support and sustain promising programs to find ways to improve care for these populations," he said.

Dr. Alegría adds that: "My ultimate goal as director is to improve the mental health care of multicultural populations through innovative research projects, national centers and projects, collaboration, and training. This grant is very exciting. It encompasses $3 million over 5 years to continue preliminary work begun under the UPR-CHA Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and Training Center. We conduct research on Latino health and health care disparities, specifically mental disorders, substance abuse and asthma, and to generate and test models of improved service delivery to eliminate these disparities." To find out more about the Center, http://www.multiculturalmentalhealth.org/index.asp

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston’s metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physicians Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid plan. For more information: http://www.challiance.org