NEW ORLEANS – Dillard University is getting a $25 million, five-year grant to expand its research of health and health care inequalities between races and people in different parts of the country.
Theodore Callier, the university’s assistant vice president for research and sponsored programs, said Monday that it’s the largest single grant ever to Dillard.
The National Institutes of Health is giving Dillard the money to invest, with endowment earnings used to improve labs, hire faculty members and recruit and support students for the research.
The grant comes from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Minority populations tend to have poorer health and poorer health care. The institute’s website says research could include studying diseases in which the differences are biggest, improving treatment of such diseases, and understanding what causes the differences.
Dr. Phyllis Worthy Dawkins, a lead investigator for the grant, said it will have a major impact on Dillard’s schools of nursing and public health. She said it also will increase cooperative research between the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and the Department of Social Sciences.
Former president Marvalene Hughes began work on the grant before she departed the school’s presidency in June. She said it will help the city as well as the university, by expanding health and biomedical research infrastructure.
