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Aims and Goals of the University of Washington Center for Genomics and Healthcare Equality
The specific goals of the Center are to:
Genomic research is rapidly producing new opportunities for understanding health and disease. As with other seminal developments in biomedicine and technology, the successful use of this new science in clinical care requires a careful evaluation of benefits and harms, in order to encourage uses that improve health outcomes and minimize applications that cause harm or accelerate health care expenditures without commensurate benefit.
This challenge is matched by another daunting societal concern: the need to reduce health care disparities. Minority, low income and rural groups often experience significant barriers to health care, including limited access to services and culturally inappropriate care. A major challenge in the era of genomic health care will be to insure that these medically underserved communities can benefit fully from genomic technology without experiencing additional disparities due to genetic discrimination. Minority groups may view genomic health care with suspicion because of historic associations between genetics and racism or because genetic science is viewed as a threat to core cultural values. These concerns need to be taken into account in determining the benefits and appropriate uses of genomic technology. The Center is dedicated to addressing two overarching themes accompanying the clinical integration of genomics: the need to define criteria that lead to clinically and socially appropriate applications of genomic health care; and the need for a translational pathway that incorporates the goal of reducing health and health care disparities among the medically underserved.
The specific aims of the Center are to:
1. Identify strategies for assessing the clinical utility of a range of different genomic applications to health care.
2. Assess the implications of different genomic health care applications for medically underserved populations.
3. Based on these efforts, describe policy options for the clinical integration of genomics into health care, and their implications for addressing health and health care disparities.
4. Engage ELSI researchers and genetic scientists in on-going conversations about the interacting contributions of the environment, social structural factors, and genetics to health outcomes.
5. Provide training opportunities to encourage the participation of researchers from underrepresented minorities in the Center’s research agenda and other ELSI research.
6. Stimulate collaborative partnerships that result in additional funded research addressing these and related questions.
Inter-disciplinary collaboration
In addressing the implications of genomic health care for the medically underserved, the UW Center will promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and build on partnerships with investigators at other genomics centers at the University of Washington, including three centers in the School of Public Health (the Institute for Public Health Genetics, the Center for Genomics and Public Health, and the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health), and the Center of Excellence in Genome Sciences within the Department of Genome Sciences. The Center will also benefit from partnerships with researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Oregon Health and Science University, and the University of Colorado, and will receive advice from a diverse group of expert consultants.
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