(Jackson, MS) – Jackson State University marked the 13th anniversary of the Jackson Heart Study with a celebration on Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Jackson Medical Mall, Center Stage.
JSU President Carolyn W. Meyers and Dr. Ricardo A. Brown, dean of the College of Public Service, were among those scheduled to speak at the event. The celebration acknowledged the first participant clinical exam, which was conducted on Sept. 26, 2000. The study recruited 5,301 participants, ages 34-85.
“We’re proud to be a part of the Jackson Heart Study. This research will support efforts to improve the health of African Americans for generations to come,” Meyers said.
JSU was recently awarded nearly $3.1 million in funding for the new center, which
is led by Dr. Donna Antoine-LaVigne as the principal investigator. Dr. Geni Eng serves as the principal investigator for the collaborating institution, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
The Community Outreach Center is the former Community Partnership/Outreach Office. During the initial phase of the JHS, the office developed novel strategies to recruit the study’s 5,301 participants. The JHS is the largest all African-American cohort study of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. The JHS is a collaboration among JSU, Tougaloo College and the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
“The College of Public Service at JSU is obviously very excited about housing the Community Outreach Center of the Jackson Heart Study. The goals of the center are a great fit with our service mission and vision to reduce and eliminate minority health disparities,” Brown said.
The new center will continue building on the foundation created by the Community Outreach Office by providing community health education activities, disseminating translated scientific articles and JHS findings for the community, communicating health promotion and prevention messages, communicating JHS findings and conducting trainings and cohort and community engagement activities.
“The study has served as a springboard for community health outreach and other important scientific studies in the African-American community,” said Antoine-LaVigne. “And, it has given training opportunities to hundreds of community partners and dozens of underrepresented college students interested in careers in science, medicine and public health.”
Through numerous medical tests, scans, exams and interviews, the Jackson Heart Study has followed the participants in the metro Jackson area for more than a decade, while also analyzing the effects of healthy lifestyle factors such as diet, physical activity, and community and church involvement.
Researchers throughout the world have used the enormous amount of collected data – along with further testing – to produce scientific articles that have appeared in prestigious journals such as the American Society of Human Genetics, Psychosomatic Medicine, Circulation, American Journal of Cardiology, Ethnicity and Disease, Journal of the American Dietetic Association and American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No HSN268201300025C”. (ARTICLE H.20. of JHS Contract)