Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center Awarded $1.2 Million in Grants From the CDC That Benefit Valley, State

The Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center (PRC), an academic-community partnership that promotes research and disease prevention, has been awarded nearly $1.2 million in grants by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One of the new two-year grants provides $400,000 a year to study outcomes in complementary/alternative medicine (CAM). This work, to be conducted in collaboration with the Integrative Medicine Center at Griffin Hospital, the University of Arizona, Columbia University, Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, and other sites, will help identify both the best research methods for studying CAM, and the best clinical practices.

A second grant provides $150,000 a year to identify the best approaches to the prevention and control of obesity. Study members include Kelly Brownell, professor of psychology at Yale and a leading authority on obesity; Michael Bracken, professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Public Health, Neurology and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine, a leading chronic disease epidemiologist; and Loretta DiPietro, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, a nationally recognized authority on physical activity.

An additional $100,000 enhances the on-going efforts to promote oral health throughout Connecticut, under the direction of Stanton Wolfe, oral health director for the state. A fourth grant supports a self-study by the Yale-Griffin Center about its collaboration with the local community, and the effectiveness of its health promotion efforts. The grant begins on October 1.

“My staff and I are thrilled to have the means to expand our research and our health promotion efforts,” said David L. Katz, M.D., director of the Yale-Griffin PRC, and principal investigator on each of the new grants. “We knew we had submitted worthwhile grants, but we never expected to get them all.”

Katz said active collaboration between the center staff and leading researchers at Yale was a vital element in the success. He said the center is a three-way collaboration among Valley agency leaders and residents, his core staff, and the faculty at Yale.

“Our center is functioning just as we hoped it would, fostering partnership between academics and community agencies,” said Michael H. Merson, M.D., Yale’s dean of public health and center principal investigator. “As a result, excellent research is being done that advances science and provides practical benefit to community residents. These new grants will expand and advance our work. I am grateful to Dr. Katz for his excellent leadership.”

The Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center was established in 1998 through a five-year, nearly $3 million grant from the CDC. One of 24 centers nationwide, the Yale-Griffin PRC is the only center in the network based in a hospital. The goal of all PRCs is to develop innovative approaches to health promotion and disease prevention and to disseminate these approaches nationally. All centers seek to develop research agendas responsive to the views and priorities of the communities they serve.