(a)  The duties of the institute shall include both of the following:

(1)  Designing and conducting a series of complementary projects to eliminate racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic health disparities through culturally sensitive preventive health education, health risk appraisal, risk factor screening, and programs to facilitate appropriate medical followup and treatment.

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(2)  Providing integrated leadership in developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining services and programmatic partnerships between the scientific disciplines of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, community-based organizations, and agencies in the public sector.

(b)  The objectives of the institute shall include all of the following:

(1)  Strengthening partnerships among community-based organizations in multicultural areas in the vicinity of Los Angeles.

(2)  Building the capacity for community service of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and local community-based organizations while addressing specific community health care issues using a broadly based interdisciplinary integrative community service model of health care.

(3)  Developing a well-defined central focus and an efficient and cost effective organizational structure in which each project of the institute is related to the shared resource core.

(c)  The institute shall employ the following strategies to achieve its objectives:

(1)  Assemble a multidisciplinary cadre of health professionals, public health experts, and community health workers to operate the clinical centers and shared resource core and implement community service programs, and provide the infrastructure to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of community-based programs to eliminate health disparities.

(2)  Establish the administrative, educational, methodological, computational, and communication infrastructure, including personnel, facilities, and technology, to support the activities of the institute.

(3)  Bring the diverse scientific and governmental resources of the community, local organizations, public sector, and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science together in an integrated effort to eliminate health disparities.

(4)  Gather local and regional surveillance data and conduct primary and secondary data collection to assess the extent, severity, clinical characteristics, causes, and solutions to the problem of disparities in health outcomes, disease progression, morbidity, and mortality of stroke and hypertension, obesity and nutrition, and HIV/AIDS.

(5)  Implement community-focused interventions and demonstration projects to eliminate disparities in the evaluation and treatment of stroke and hypertension, obesity and nutrition, and HIV/AIDS, based on information from the work of the institute and local and regional resources.

(6)  Apply population-based sciences, including epidemiology, outcome assessment, and informatics, to projects that address risk factors as well as behavioral, environmental, clinical, and biological contributors to disparities in stroke and hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS.

(7)  Serve as a community resource for technical assistance and training in the communication and dissemination of information, and for the synthesis, interpretation, and dissemination of health indicator data and public health information relevant to diverse communities.

(8)  Facilitate the development of lasting academic and community partnerships that promote healthy lifestyles, prevent disease, reduce risk factors for disease, and increase ongoing access to culturally appropriate health care for stroke and hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS.

(Added by Stats. 2003, Ch. 200, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2004.)