Dr. Mamudu Receives Funding for Cardiovascular Disease Research
Dr. Hadii Mamudu, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Services Management and Policy in the College of Public Health, has been awarded a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award. Dr. Mamudu received funding for his project titled “Developing a Research Agenda to Prevent and Control CVD in Central Appalachia.”
The research team for the project in the College of Public Health includes Dr. Mary Ann Littleton, Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health; Dr. Liang Wang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology; and Ginny Kidwell of the Tennessee Institute of Public Health. Collaborators outside of the college include Dr. Timir Paul of East Tennessee State University Cardiology Services and the Quillen College of Medicine; Rob Gregory of Karing Hearts Cardiology, Lynn Frierson of Mended Hearts, and Vicki Casenburg of Cumberland Marketing, Inc.
Although advances in cardiovascular diseases (CVD) prevention and treatment have led to declining prevalence over the past decades, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States, accounting for 1 in 3 deaths and over $300 billion in healthcare costs.
National public health goals outlined in the Healthy People 2020 and the American Heart Association Impact Goals include reducing the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors and improving the health status of patients living with cardiovascular disease. Achieving these goals will require addressing cardiovascular disease disparities in population subgroups and geographic areas such as Central Appalachia, where the prevalence of cardiovascular disease is higher than the statewide and national rates.
The short-term goal of the project is to create a patient-centered and population-based cardiovascular health management research agenda for Central Appalachia that utilizes comparative effectiveness research frameworks and methods to improve cardiovascular health outcomes. The longer-term goal is to implement these strategies to reduce the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors in the region.
Dr. Mamudu has frequently published research on cardiovascular disease throughout his career, including his most recent article in the Southern Medical Journal titled “Association Between Multiple Modifiable Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension among Asymptomatic Patients in Central Appalachia.”
The Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award program is intended to bring more patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare stakeholders into the research process. The goal is to support projects that will build communities better able to participate in patient-centered research and comparative clinical effectiveness research, as well as serve as channels to more widely disseminate the results of this research.