$33M Grant To Help Improve Health In Indiana

The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute wants to make Hoosiers healthier.

The discovery of dangerous lead levels in South Bend is among the work done by researchers with The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. (Pixabay)

(Indianapolis, Ind.) - A statewide research partnership is getting a financial boost to continue its work to improve the health of Hoosiers. The National Institutes of Health is awarding $33 million to the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, a collaboration between Purdue University, Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame.

Deputy director of the institute, Connie Weaver, says Indiana is one of the unhealthiest states in the country, and their research work aims to change that.

"We are physically inactive, we don't eat well, we smoke too much, we have high incidences of diseases that are affected by lifestyle like obesity and diabetes and cardiovascular disease," says Weaver.

This is the third five-year grant Indiana CTSI has received, and since its formation in 2008, Weaver says, it has uncovered dangerous lead levels in South Bend and researched ways to reduce infant mortality in central Indiana.

The institute has created better collaboration between the researchers, which Weaver says improves efficiency and costs. She says it's really a first-of-its-kind partnership for Indiana universities.

"Mostly we interacted on football or basketball before," says Weaver. "We didn't have mechanisms in place for approving studies that could be joint, or how to fund part to one university and then another part to another university. It was all very cumbersome."

Over the next several years, Weaver says, one area of focus will be improving health disparities between downtown Indianapolis and the northern suburbs.

"There's, like, a 12-year life expectancy difference," says Weaver. "So we're engaging with the communities to help assess what are the issues involved. What can we do to improve health?"

Indiana CTSI also will work to recruit more residents to sign onto its health research volunteer registry, "All IN for Health." The goal is to reach 100,000 people; so far 6,000 have joined.