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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Westat is pleased to apply in response to RFA-HL-15-031 to serve as the Research Coordinating Unit (RCU) in support of the Hypertension Disparities Reduction Program Partnership (HDRPP) goals and the administrative, communication, and research activities required under this agreement. As a member of this research partnership, the RCU will work with UH2/UH3 investigators, program staff, and the Program Steering Committee (PSC) to establish and nurture a cooperative and productive learning culture committed to meeting the program's planning and implementation milestones, harmonizing design elements where feasible, and generating and sharing relevant evidence to stakeholders and consumers. The Clinical Trials Area of Westat has over 25 years' experience coordinating and conducting federally sponsored clinical research relevant to patients, healthcare providers, and policymakers. We have served as the coordinating center for many large, multi-site, and multidisciplinary clinical research programs across a broad range of health and disease focus areas. Westat's proposed RCU team offers strong logistical and technical capabilities, as well as a team of subject matter experts (SMEs) with in-depth appreciation of PCORI's mission and goals, knowledge of patient- centered outcomes research (PCOR), comparative effectiveness research (CER), and patient and stakeholder engagement principles, and an understanding of the complexity and challenges of community-based management of hypertension. Proposed Principal Investigator (PI) Paula Darby Lipman, PhD, has conducted intervention research with primary care practice-based research networks (PBRNs), collaborated on infrastructure building projects in PCOR, and is currently PI for the NHLBI Pragmatic Trials Evaluation and Administration Coordinating Center. She is joined by Westat experts in preventive medicine (Margot Krauss, MD), PCOR and stakeholder engagement methodology (Jennifer Huang, PhD), and health disparities and minority health (Brenda Leath, MHSA), and an experienced project manager, Ms. Lauren Laimon. The vision for the RCU is to support the HDRPP goal of reducing the gap in hypertension awareness, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes among high-risk populations through the coordination of research- and communications- related activities between and among the investigators, the PSC, PCORI, and the National Institutes of Health.
