Tulsa Researchers to Tackle School, Community Health Inequity

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The National Institutes of Health has awarded an $11.3 million grant to researchers studying health inequities in youth in Tulsa, Okla. (14.82% Latino population).

The funding will be used to establish the Children’s Health Equity Solutions Center, which will be a partnership between researchers from the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Center for Health Sciences and the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa.

“The number one predictor in not just how long you will live, but how well you will live is income,” said Jennifer Hays-Grudo, a regents professor of human development and family science in the College of Human Sciences at OSU.

“Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, if you’re born in the bottom 20% of the income level, you are more likely to die in the bottom 20 percent than in other parts of the country. We don’t have very good economic mobility and we thought we should address that.”

The researchers will begin by working on three different projects focusing on health inequities.

One of the projects funded will be the Juntos program. This pilot program will take place in the Tulsa Public Schools and it is designed to prevent high school dropouts and drug and alcohol use among the area’s Latino adolescents.

It’s accepted that education leads to better jobs and higher incomes. Research has also shown that better-educated individuals live longer, healthier lives than those with less education, and their children are more likely to thrive.

“Our hope is that our research leads to a better understanding of how social and demographic factors in the community affect long-term health,” Hays-Grudo said. “We know many of these factors matter a great deal. We don’t always know what to do. Hopefully this will give us a better handle on how to be affective in improving the health and longevity of our citizens starting with our children and adolescents.”

In addition to funding the work of the researchers, the grant will allow for smaller awards to be distributed for seed projects in order to launch pilot programs, research new data and create advocacy for health equity in the state.

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