Ramping Up Diversity in Research; Enriching Hennepin Healthcare’s Representation

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) continue to be important elements of Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute’s (HHRI) and are values the organization is prioritizing with its research and in its staff.

HHRI is heightening its emphasis on DEI by fostering a movement to include more communities of color in its mission of achieving scientific excellence.

To drive HHRI’s DEI goals forward, Warren McKinney, PhD, was named HHRI’s first Vice President for Equity in Research in the spring of 2022. In this role, Dr. McKinney is instrumental in supporting HHRI’s investigators and researchers conducting studies in marginalized communities facing healthcare disparities.

“It’s been quite an exciting period,” Dr. McKinney said. “Overall, this will be key as the organization navigates its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities roadmap,” he said.

Much of Dr. McKinney’s work focuses on the disparities people of color often experience after being put on the waiting list to get a kidney transplant.

According to a study published in Transplantation, Black Americans are four times as likely to develop kidney failure as white patients and are less likely to receive a lifesaving kidney transplant.

To address kidney transplant disparities for Black Americans, Dr. McKinney is interested in investigating why people of color with cardiovascular disease are being removed from the kidney transplant waiting list.

“This would support efforts to better tailor regimens to the needs of different communities based on their variable exposure to these risks,” Dr. McKinney said.

Dr. McKinney is also supporting diversity at HHRI in other ways, including helping to expand HHRI’s work to include more Spanish-speaking patients.

Expanding HHRI’s work to include Spanish-speaking patients is also where the work of Sandra Japuntich, PhD, LP, comes in. She has specific expertise working with Hispanic and Black communities, including studies focused on tobacco cessation.

Dr. Japuntich is collaborating with a team of researchers, including Dr. McKinney, on the Center for Chronic Disease Reduction and Equity Promotion Across Minnesota (C2DREAM), a partnership between HHRI, the University of Minnesota, and the Mayo Clinic. C2DREAM, a $19 million project funded by the National Institute of Minority and Health Disparities, is researching the impact of structural and interpersonal racism on health inequities for people who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).

Dr. Japuntich’s C2DREAM Smoking Cessation Outreach for Equity study has a primary goal of reducing the effects of racism on chronic cardiovascular disease while providing smoking cessation treatment for 2,000 patients from BIPOC communities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has thoroughly documented the long history of the tobacco industry’s unfair and unjust practices, including aggressively marketing menthol cigarettes to African Americans since the 1950s — a practice that still continues today.

“You’ll see higher density of tobacco advertising in Black and Brown and lower-income communities,” Dr. Japuntich said. “We have an opportunity to improve the health of these communities.”

Dr. Japuntich said historically clinical trials about smoking cessation haven’t included many Black people.

In 2023, Dr. Japuntich received a Research Project Grant Program (R01) award from the National Institutes of Health to study the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and large language models for developing content to help African Americans stop smoking cigarettes. Dr. Japuntich said these cutting-edge innovations will put the results of this study on a strategic track to serve this community.

According to the CDC, African Americans are more likely to die from smoking-related heart disease than Hispanic people and non-Hispanic white people. To help address this disparity, leveraging AI will be a key element for smoking cessation.

“African Americans are less likely to use smoking cessation treatment,” Dr. Japuntich said. “AI would increase our ability to provide treatment, harnessing its power for communities needing it the most.”

To read more about HHRI investigators leading C2DREAM research and their studies, visit:
• You Have to C It 2 Dream It
• Smoking Cessation Outreach for Equity (SCORE)
• PASCAL: Culturally Tailored Conversational Agent for Quitting Smoking