Dr. Jiang Receives American Diabetes Association Grant

Luohua Jiang, Ph.D., assistant professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) School of Rural Public Health, has been awarded a three-year research grant by the American Diabetes Association, with first-year funding of $94,591.

Dr. Jiang will be the principal investigator for the clinical/translational award on “Multilevel Analysis of the Translational Effects of Lifestyle Intervention among American Indian and Alaska Natives.”

Dr. Jiang will be analyzing data collected from 36 diverse American Indian and Alaska Native sites that participate in a lifestyle intervention program to prevent diabetes in their communities. She will determine where and for whom the intervention is most effective, as well as the possible reasons for the differences in intervention outcomes among the participants and sites.

“Our ultimate goal is to address the striking diabetes disparities that American Indian and Alaska Natives face by investigating the ways in which this diabetes prevention intervention works best,” Dr. Jiang said.

Previously, Dr. Jiang has been involved with several large multisite prevention studies among minority populations to reduce health disparities and is currently a co-investigator for a number of chronic disease management projects addressing older populations.
Collaborators on the project will be Spero Manson, Ph.D., Jan Beals, Ph.D., and Kelly Moore, M.D., M.P.H., all from the University of Colorado Denver.