Chicago CCFC for the new AsA-NHPI cohort - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The University of Chicago (UChicago) Center for Asian Health Equity (CAHE) and the Institute for Population and Precision Health (IPPH) put forth this plan to leverage decades of experience enrolling underrepresented minorities, and especially Asian Americans, into health studies and epidemiologic cohorts as a clinic/community field site for the new NIH-funded AsA-NHPI Cohort (NAC). We plan to enroll 2,500 participants from communities in the metropolitan Chicago area with large Asian subgroup representation using a population-based sampling framework. We will specifically target South Asian, Korean, Filipino and Southeast Asians (Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Laotian) in randomized census tracts using a 2-stage sampling design. Our long-term partner, the Asian Health Coalition (AHC) has been serving as the national engagement lead for the All of Us Research Program and has set the national model for community engaged cohorts tailored to Asian inclusion. We have identified active community partners who are already supporting enrollment into a similar protocol. In this proposal, the UChicago MPIs and team enthusiastically propose a collaborative approach to meet the RFA milestones; building on prior success and experience working on national multisite cohorts with an emphasis on racial diversity, scientific rigor, and innovative approaches to improve health disparities. We suggest an approach and methods for consideration for the common protocol during the UG3 period, with full appreciation for the balance of decisions that will need to be made to ensure efficient recruitment, comprehensive yet not burdensome surveys, thoughtful clinical protocols that can be implemented in a community or in-home setting, and high-quality biospecimens processed and banked to support scientific investigation and ancillary studies. We plan to hire bilingual, bicultural individuals from the Asian community and train them to work as “community ambassadors (CAs)” during the entire study period, a model that has proven highly effective in Asian communities previously, promoting both participation and retention. We have an institutional commitment to deploy mobile medical units (MMUs) and study vans to targeted study areas at no cost to the grant to ensure that we can lower barriers to participation. We are confident that our proposed approach will allow us to meet the cohort UG3 and UH3 milestones, short-, mid- and long-term goals, and contribute significantly to this important effort in all phases.
