Your generosity would endow a deputy director of the Tulane Institute for Innovations in Health Equity. This new position, which is essential to the institute’s future success, would oversee the institute under the direction of Dean LaVeist. This administrator would build out the institute’s long-term strategic vision and carry out the day-to-day duties of managing the institute. Currently, Dean LaVeist is filling in in this capacity, but hiring an expert for this new role is vital to allowing the institute to thrive. Ideally, the person who will hold this position would have relevant administrative experience, be adept at communicating with heads of foundations and hold expertise in complex health equity issues.

Your generosity would support hiring faculty members with firsthand experience working with communities affected by health disparities. This experience would allow them to develop a deep understanding of the complex factors contributing to inequities and devise effective strategies to address them. These professors could engage with communities to make sure that community-centered research is conducted in collaboration with the people affected by health inequities.

A major part of the mission of the Tulane Institute for Innovations in Health Equity is to enhance health through direct engagement of disadvantaged communities. These groups are at disproportionately greater risk for health-related challenges due to heightened exposure to risk factors and the inequitable allocation of protective resources. In addition, the Tulane Institute for Innovations in Health Equity cultivates the next generation of research on health inequities through training activities that are available to students, postdocs and faculty at Tulane University, and to other institutions at the local, national and international levels. Initiatives include workshops, seminars and conferences.

The Tulane Institute for Innovations in Health Equity aims to conduct research to understand and reduce health inequities. This research is guided by a social-ecological lens, which recognizes that health phenomena are not solely determined by individual biological or behavioral factors. Rather, societal structures, institutions, policies and the environment can enhance or undermine health and play a profound role in generating health inequities. At Tulane, there is a strong emphasis on connecting laboratory-based research to population sciences, including interactions between socio-contextual factors and psychobiological mechanisms impacting disease vulnerability.