The All of Us HBCU Road Tour is coming to Los Angeles, California!

Join us and our hosts, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, for this virtual event. Learn about the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Hub, one of the country’s largest and most diverse health databases. Hear from HBCU researchers about how they are using the dataset to advance health equity. Learn about efforts in Los Angeles and nationwide to ensure an ethical and engaged future for precision medicine. And find out how you can get involved with All of Us.

Monday, September 16, 2024

12 PM – 2 PM PT / 3 PM – 5 PM ET

Moderator

Roberto Vargas, MD, MPH

Roberto Vargas, MD, MPH is Assistant Dean for Health Policy and Inter-Professional Education within the College of Medicine and Director of the Health Policy Core of the Urban Health Institute at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU). His research expertise includes descriptive and comparative analyses of health care interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities in care as well as community engagement in partnered research efforts.  Dr. Vargas is board certified in Internal Medicine, an adjunct natural scientist at the RAND Corporation, and serves on the NIH All of Us Research Program Advisory Panel and the National Kidney Foundation’s Health Equity Advisory Committee. He completed the fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard University School of Medicine and a Masters of Public Health degree at the Harvard School Public Health, residency and chief residency in the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program, medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and undergraduate degree in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Speakers

Juanita Booker-Vaughns, EdD, M.Ed

Dr. Booker-Vaughns is Community Faculty in the College of Medicine Department of Preventative and Social Medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. She is also a Faculty member for the Family Medicine Residency Community Behavior Health Rotation (CBHR) Program, Educating Students Around Aging Research (ESAR) Program, Substance Abuse Research Training (SART) Program, and teaches clinical cases to MD students in the College of Medicine at CDU. Dr. Booker-Vaughns also serves as a Community Health Educator in the Cancer Outreach Division under Dr. Jay Vadgama in the Division of Internal Medicine. Dr. Booker-Vaughns is a student mentor for those in programs for Biomedical Sciences, STRIDE Research Program, and the Clinical Scholars Program. She serves on the Academic Senate Clinical/Community Committee and Social Medicine Collab Core Team.

Chizobam Ani, MD, MPH, PhD, FACP

Dr. Chizobam Ani is an African American internist and cardiovascular epidemiologist. He earned a MD degree from the University College Hospital in Ibadan Nigeria in 1999, a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Kansas and Wichita State University in 2003. He also obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (Phd) degree in epidemiology from the Loma Linda University California in 2022. He completed internships in preventive medicine and internal medicine in addition to a residency in internal medicine at Loma Linda University from 2011-2014. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of internal medicine at Charles R Drew University (CDU) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). His research focuses on diabetes and heart failure/cardiomyopathy with the goal of reducing health disparities among underserved ethnic minority and vulnerable populations.

Felicia Jones

Felica Jones is the Executive Director at Healthy African American Families (HAAF), she is committed to decreasing health disparities in Los Angeles County by addressing the Social Determinants of Health in South Los Angeles and the surrounding communities. Over the past 30 years, Ms. Jones has worked on numerous research projects in various roles from Community Researcher to Co-Investigator, including projects funded by CDC, NIH, NIMH and PCORI. These projects have addressed such diverse topics as autism, depression, preterm pregnancy, diabetes, and asthma, just to name a few. In addition, she is a co-author on more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and has provided mentorship and training to junior researchers and community members.  She views Community Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) as a key method for improving community engagement and equity in research. Ms. Jones was a members that received the 2015 UCLA Landmark Program of the Year Award, the 2015 Community Campus Partnerships for Health Award, and the 2014 Joint Team Science Award given by the Association for Clinical and Translational Science and the American Federation for Medical Research for Community Partners in Care, an NIH-funded CPPR project on depression in under-resourced communities.

Gretchen Clark Wartman, BA

Gretchen Clark Wartman is Vice President for Policy and Program of the National Minority Quality Forum.  Ms. Wartman has more than 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors in health policy strategy and analysis, issue advocacy, health systems planning, and program administration. Ms. Wartman directs the NMQF Institute for Equity in Health Policy and Practice; represents NMQF on public and private sector advisory boards; and directs the NMQF National Alliance for Brain Health and Awareness. Ms. Wartman led successful ICD-10-CM coding initiatives for triple negative breast cancer; and for neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia and stages of severity of Alzheimer’s Disease. Ms. Wartman managed NMQF’s efforts in support of the NIH All of Us Research Program. Prior to her tenure with NMQF, Ms. Wartman held positions with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, including serving as the Title V/Maternal and Child Health Director, and Director of the Division of Nutritional Health and Services; and in Michigan as Assistant Director for Planning at the Greater Detroit Area Health Council; and Senior Health Planner with the Comprehensive Health Planning Council of Southeastern Michigan. 

Kenneth B. Wells, MD, MPH

Dr. Kenneth Wells is David Weil Professor, Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Professor of Health Policy and Management in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Affiliated Adjunct Staff at RAND Corporation, and Staff Psychiatrist at Greater Los Angeles VA.  He was founding Director and now investigator for UCLA Semel Center for Health Services and Society.  He is an Associate Director of UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program, coordinating community-partnered participatory research training; founding UCLA PI now investigator for the UCLA/VA Center of Excellence for Veteran Resilience and Recovery. Dr. Wells has expertise in behavioral health services research, community engagement and implementation sciences, addressing disparities by partnered research.  He was co-I of the Health Insurance Experiment, PI for depression condition of Medical Outcomes Study, PI of Partners in Care, Witness for Wellness and Community Partners in Care (CPIC), initial PI now investigator of state contracts to develop free digital mental health resources in COVID-19 (Together for Wellness/Juntos por Nuestro Bienestar, T4W/Juntos), with community partner input. He was academic lead for Association of Clinical and Translational Science 2014 Team Science Award, 2014 APHA Thomas Bruce Award, 2015 Campus-Community Partnership for Health Annual Award, won the APHA Carl Taube award (2017) and 2018 Sarnat Prize of National Academy of Medicine.

About the All of Us Researcher Academy

The All of Us Researcher Academy is a comprehensive program that provides training and technical assistance for researchers who are conducting research with the All of Us Researcher Workbench—the cloud-based analytics platform where registered researchers can access data from All of Us participants. The academy also supports peer-to-peer learning and network-building among researchers and students.

The academy is dedicated to providing support to institutions that have a documented historical mission or ​historical ​commitment to training underrepresented students. Currently, the All of Us Researcher Academy resources are free for students, faculty, and post-docs at institutions with a track record of training researchers underrepresented in the biomedical workforce. See the Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity for examples of groups that have been shown to be underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce.

All of Us Researcher Academy Partners

The All of Us Researcher Academy is supported by the Division of Engagement and Outreach, All of Us Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Award Number OT20D028395.

All of Us and the All of Us logo are registered service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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