Here is this week’s news of grants to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
North Carolina Central University, the historically Black educational institution in Durham, received a five-year, $5.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant will fund a number of research projects that focus on cardio-metabolic diseases that are disproportionately prevalent in the African American community. The programs will be under the direction of Sean Kimbro, director of the university’s Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute.
Historically Black Fort Valley State University in Georgia received a five-year, $1,481,670 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support programs to prepare students for college. The grant program is under the direction of Arnetta Hall, the director of the Upward Bound program at the university.
The University of North Carolina School of Medicine received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study HIV testing practices in North Carolina and to develop a program to encourage physicians to conduct routine screening procedures. The grant program is under the direction of Becky L. White, assistant professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases.
Dr. White earned her medical degree at the University of Virginia. She also holds a master of public health degree from the University of North Carolina.
The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University in Atlanta received a four-year, $4.5 million grant from the Canadian International Development Agency for a project to decrease maternal and infant mortality rates in rural Ethiopia. About 22,000 mothers and 100,000 children die in Ethiopia each year from complications of childbirth. The infant mortality rate in Ethiopia is 77 per every 1,000 live births.
Here is a video that discusses the project.
