Cornell Center for Health EquityCore Focus Areas

Core Focus Areas

The Cornell Center for Health Equity is dedicated to three strategic Core Focus Areas, each overseen by a team of Core Directors with representation from both the New York and Ithaca campuses. These focus areas ensure engagement by all stakeholders to advance a research and community outreach agenda.

This photo shows an exterior building shot on Cornell University's Ithaca campus.

The vision of the Cornell Center for Health Equity is to nurture durable academic-community partnerships to inform our research agenda, integrate community perspectives into our research, and develop an infrastructure to disseminate and implement the results of our work with the overarching goal of achieving health equity locally, regionally, and nationally.

Donate

Education

Directors

  • This image shows a headshot photo of Gen Meredith, DrPH, OTR, Co-Director of the Education Core at CCHEq.

    Gen Meredith, DrPH, OTR
  • This image is a headshot of Susana Morales, MD, Co-Director of the Education Core at CCHEq and a principal investigator at the Diversity Center of Excellence.

    Susana Morales, MD

The Education Core is led by Co-directors who oversee educational programs related to health equity on both Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine campuses.[BW1] The Education Core in NYC focuses on engaging Underrepresented in Medicine (URM) populations to pursue health-related professions through the Diversity Center of Excellence [link to new Diversity Center of Excellence landing page on CCHEq site]. The Education Core in Ithaca engages with the CCHEq Student Chapter [add hyperlink]. This core offers career mentoring, internship opportunities, and racial allyship training, and encourages collaboration between faculty, students, and community partners interested in health equity.

Community Engagement & Advocacy

Directors

  • This image shows a headshot photo of Lara Parrilla, MPH, Co-Director of the Education Core at CCHEq.

    Lara Parrilla, MPH
  • Adam Hughes, MPH, is Co-Director of the Community Engagement and Advocacy Core at CCHEq.

    Adam Hughes, MPH

The Community Engagement & Advocacy Core focuses on developing partnerships with community-based organizations to address the inequities in health outcomes among vulnerable populations throughout New York City and New York State. We aim to foster a relationship characterized by mutuality, equality of status, clearly defined goals, and effective communication. Additionally, we aim to fully integrate key stakeholders in collaborative research and outreach programs that will generate new evidence and achieve health equity.

Research, Training & Mentoring

Directors

  • This image is a headshot of Rana Zadeh, PhD, Co-Director of the Research, Training and Mentoring Core at CCHEq.

    Rana Zadeh, PhD
  • This image is a headshot of William Schpero, PhD, the Co-Director of the Research, Training and Mentoring Core at CCHEq.

    William Schpero, PhD

The Research, Training & Mentoring Core advances a robust research and outreach agenda informed by current gaps in health disparity assessments. These gaps include better understanding of disparities in heart disease, stroke, and cancer outcomes, as well as the role of policy, societal biases, healthcare providers, and the home and family environment in overcoming them. Community-based research efforts make clear that more information is needed about the most vulnerable groups and to better assess these groups’ most urgent needs for assistance. The Center’s research is vital in order to pursue and affect systemic progress in health equity. This core includes a Pilot Grant Program to seed larger research projects, an NIH Grant Development Program, and an annual Health Equity Symposium to both showcase the Center’s work and forge new connections for future collaborations.

Meet the leadership team at the Cornell Center for Health Equity, including the Core Focus Area Directors.

Leadership