NEWS

CHAPEL HILL -- Project CONNECT: The Bridge to Healthy Communities Through Research will hold its community kickoff April 6 at the North Carolina Mutual Building in Durham from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The event, free to the public, is designed to bring attention to the importance of minority participation in research. Featured will be highlights from a recent state "report card" on health disparities and an overview of Project CONNECT that outlines how community leaders can become involved in health research.

James Speed Jr., president of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., the kickoff sponsor, will give a welcome address, and Durham Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden will give remarks.

Project CONNECT is part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-Shaw University Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities. The program is affiliated with UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

The N.C. Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities’ 2003 "report card" on racial and ethnic disparities indicated poorer health outcomes for minorities, in comparison to their white counterparts.

Increased minority participation in health research – both as study participants and as researchers – is an important way to address these inequities, said Dr. Giselle Corbie-Smith, Project CONNECT director.

"A major barrier to participation stems from the history of research in underserved communities," said Corbie-Smith, who also directs the Sheps Center’s Program on Health Disparities.

She mentioned the example of the syphilis study at Tuskegee, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Macon County, Ala., whose participants (all African-American men) had syphilis. The men were not told they had the disease and were not treated for it during the study. In 1997, then-President Bill Clinton apologized to the surviving men and the study participants’ families.

"In order to regain trust, researchers must be willing to work at it. They must be transparent and demonstrate their trustworthiness in the eyes of the community in order to overcome this obstacle," she said.

Project CONNECT will act as a liaison between researchers and community members. It also plans to conduct outreach activities with community groups to increase awareness about the rules governing research and what to expect as a participant.

For additional information about Project CONNECT and the community kickoff, e-mail contact@connect.unc.edu or call (919) 966-7107.

Project CONNECT is funded by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities.

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News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415, deborah_saine@unc.edu