Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

CHERP Co-Director Said Ibrahim, MD, MPH, a staff physician at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center (Philadelphia) and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, has long focused his research on health equity and disparities, particularly in the area of osteoarthritis care. Shown here with Daniel Hendee, Medical Center Director, CMC VAMC.

CHERP’s Co-Director Said Ibrahim, MD, MPH, will serve as the VA HSR&D’s representative for the NIH National Institute for Minority Health and Disparities (NIMHD).  CHERP Director Michael Fine, MD, MSc, most recently held this position.   This continues CHERP’s connection with the nation’s premier health equity institute and CHERP’s leadership in helping shape the national agenda relating to improving minority health and eliminating health disparities.  CHERP is the VA HSR&D Center of Innovation for Health Equity Research and Promotion.

The Advisory Council advises the U. S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, the NIH Director, and the NIMHD Director on matters related to the NIMHD’s mission.  Ibrahim will also be an Ex Officio member of the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NACMHD).

Dr. Ibrahim, a staff physician at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center (Philadelphia) and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, has long focused his research on health equity and disparities, particularly in the area of osteoarthritis care.

"This was all very exciting," said Ibrahim after attending his first NIMHD meeting in early February. "It gives CHERP a seat at the table on a national level and it will also help me advise young investigators on the direction of health equity research."

Created in 1990, the NIMHD's mission is to foster and lead scientific research aimed at improving minority health. The Advisory Council meets three times a year to review all NIH health equity grants that have received fundable scores and decide which ones to approve for funding.

Discussions at last week's Council meeting focused on the issue of precision medicine. "Genomics-informed medicine is the new hot thing," Ibrahim said. "But these same new technologies also raise issues of access, cost and coverage for racial and ethnic minorities. Some of these procedures can be very expensive."

Ibrahim also pointed out that genomics-related diagnostics are an important area of research for the VA which in 2011 launched the "Million Veteran Program" whose goal is to establish one of the world's largest DNA databases. The program has already collected samples from more than 400,000 veterans.

In a separate, similar initiative launched in January, 2015, the NIH has its own precision medicine program that is building a million-person database of DNA samples to support new areas of biomedical research.

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