RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP)
Summary
This National Institutes of Health (NIH) program aims to better understand COVID-19 testing patterns among underserved and vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic; strengthen the data on disparities in infection rates, disease progression and morbidity and mortality; and develop strategies to reduce the disparities in COVID-19 testing, rates of infection, and outcomes.
Description
The Justice Collaboratory and the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, will lead a team to characterize the incidence of COVID-19 disease progression and related outcomes in correctional facilities across Rhode Island, Minnesota, Washington, and Florida. The team includes collaborators at Brown University and the University of North Carolina, as well as Lisa Puglisi, MD, assistant professor of medicine (general medicine) and Jaimie Meyer, MD, associate professor of medicine (internal medicine). The SEICHE Center will also convene a multidisciplinary team including Yale Law School professor Tracey Meares and Elizabeth Hinton of the law school and departments of History and African American Studies, to identify ethical, historical, and legal concerns, and potential solutions for COVID-19 prevention strategies in correctional facilities.
The RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program is developing community-engaged projects across the United States to assess and expand COVID-19 testing for these underserved and/or vulnerable populations, which include health disparity populations, particularly African Americans and American Indians/Alaska Natives; those in nursing homes, jails, rural areas, or underserved urban areas; pregnant women; and the homeless.
Specific activities include:
Establishing multiple clinical research sites across the country to evaluate, in real-time, a variety of testing methods in specific populations, areas, and settings
Encouraging collaboration between the program sites and the community — tribal health centers, houses of worship, homeless shelters, and prison systems — to identify and address their unique needs
RADx-UP will develop testing strategies to apply the technological advances emerging from the various RADx efforts in real-world settings, such as distributing home diagnostic kits.
The program will occur in two phases. The first phase focuses on communities with established research infrastructures and partnerships to understand COVID-19 testing patterns, and implement strategies or interventions with the potential to rapidly increase reach, access, acceptance, uptake, and sustainment of FDA-authorized/approved diagnostics among vulnerable populations in geographic locations that are underserved. With extensive investment in the development and validation of new testing technologies, NIH anticipates significant changes in the landscape of testing and diagnostic approaches, as well as shifts in the pandemic itself over the next several months. Phase II of the RADx-UP initiative will be released at a later date to address developments for future community-engaged research.
Funding
The National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Researchers
Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.
Lisa Puglisi, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.
Jaimie Meyer, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.
Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. She received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and her B.S. from the University of Illinois.
Associate Professor of History & African American Studies at Yale University.