Project EXCEED (UCLA/RAND/Reed)

• Breast Cancer Screening among Muslim Women
• Building Communities Through Technology (California Community Technology Foundation)
• Clinical Vision Research Group (National Eye Institute)
• Healthy Community Access Program (Health Resources and Services Administration)
• Minority Involvement in Clinical Research Opportunities (National Center for Research Resources)
• Project EXCEED (UCLA/Rand/Reed)
• South Los Angeles Breast Health Promotion Project (BHPP)
• South Los Angeles Health Status Indicator Project, 1990-1998 (Currently Unfunded)

The health of Americans has improved over the past few decades, but not all Americans have benefited equally. Many ethnic and racial groups have not shared in the advances in health outcomes and health care.
 
To understand the causes and factors of these inequalities, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) awarded grants to nine "Excellence Centers To Eliminate Ethnic/Racial Disparities" (EXCEED). Each center is investigating a different theme in an effort to identify and eliminate the causes of health disparities. The grants bring together teams of both new and experienced investigators in a 5-year effort to analyze underlying causes and contributing factors for racial and ethnic disparities in health care and to identify and implement strategies for reducing and eliminating them. The Centers of Excellence approach enables assembly of a critical mass of investigators to address a group of projects linked by a central theme, such as communication or cultural competency. In addition, the Centers are able to train new investigators with an interest in minority health services research.
 
The EXCEED program joins a series of AHRQ initiatives aimed at improving the health and health care of priority populations and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and in health care access and service delivery.
 
The UCLA/CDU/RAND Project EXCEED has identified principal factors responsible for ethnic/racial disparities and tests randomized interventions to address those factors for infant mortality, colon cancer, diabetes, and ischemic heart disease. The project’s principal investigator is Martin F. Shapiro, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The CDU component of this project yielded a rich database of best practices and related programs for chronic disease (available online).