Development and implementation of the Forge AHEAD Center: A collaborative research center addressing cardiometabolic disease through academic-community partnership in the Deep South.

Abstract

The Deep South has the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in the nation, with marked disparities by race, socioeconomic status, and rurality. The mission of the Forge AHEAD Center is to improve health outcomes and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic diseases across the Deep South, with a particular focus on the prevention and treatment of these chronic diseases. Forge AHEAD is unified thematically by its application of a precision public health approach across the care continuum, defined as delivering the right intervention to the right population at the right time. This approach acknowledges the importance of context and individual beliefs and preferences, as well as the need for multi-level and multi-domain interventions to achieve health improvements. The Center brings together an interdisciplinary team of investigators from 4 institutions in 3 contiguous states in the region, as well as non-academic partners to extend cardiometabolic research into real-world community and clinical settings. Given the high prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases in the Deep South and the strong research base of the partnering institutions, the Forge AHEAD Center is ideally situated to inform research, clinical care, and policy to improve health outcomes in a region of substantial need.