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CHEER

The Consortium for Health Education, Economic Empowerment and Research (CHEER) is a community-based participatory health disparities research center funded by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities. 

CHEER's primary mission is to engage in community-based collaborations to accomplish research and incorporate the role of community assets and personal economic efficacy in order to drive healthy lifestyles for at risk persons of all racial and ethnic backgrounds in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta region. We expect these efforts to result in new and innovative approaches to address high rates of chronic illnesses for persons who live in the Delta region and to mitigate racial/ethnic inequities in health status.

Aims

CHEER has four specific aims:

  1. To inform the design of intervention strategies aimed at reducing population health disparities by developing outcomes measures and monitoring signals to assess progress in impacting health of urban African-American and immigrant populations in Memphis and surrounding Delta regions of poverty;
  2. To develop and implement transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional basic, behavioral, clinical, and population-based research on health disparities.
  3. To actively engage community representatives and health-care providers in collaboratively setting priorities for research, outreach and assessing activities that address health disparities; and
  4. To attract, retain and educate trans-disciplinary professionals sensitive to the need to prepare, disseminate, and implement use of culturally relevant and research-based health education materials and interventions in work in Memphis and the surrounding Delta region.

Partnership

CHEER was initially founded as a partnership of seven organizations who worked together to develop, share, and implement research priorities that impacted minority health and reduced health inequities. The founding collaborating organizations included the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), Methodist Le Bonheur Hospital, LeMoyne-Owen College (LOC), the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department (MSCHD), Memphis Housing Authority (MHA), First Baptist Church Lauderdale (FBCL), and Mustard Seed Inc (MS). Initial funding for CHEER was made possible (in part) by 1P20MD005118-01 from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Subsequent funding has been provided by The Assisi Foundation of Memphis, Inc. and Tennessee Department of Health.

Investigators

Shelley White-Means, PhD
Executive Director

Muriel Rice, PhD
Director of Community Engagement Core

Mona Newsome Wicks, PhD
Executive Leadership Board

Last Published: Apr 25, 2024