“Texas faces an impending crisis regarding the health of its population, which will profoundly influence the state’s competitive position nationally and globally. The health of Texas, economically, educationally, culturally and socially depends on the physical and mental health of its population. Quality of life for individual Texans and the communities in which they live depends critically upon health status.”
    —“Code Red:  The Critical Condition of Health in Texas” 2006 report

Infant mortality. Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. Diabetes. Obesity. Musculoskeletal disease. Cardiovascular disease. Ethnically disproportionate illness. All are problems that rob the productivity and quality of life of Texans each day, and strain our personal pocketbooks as well as the healthcare system as a whole.  

These longstanding health issues affect all of us and will not go away until a comprehensive, focused and seamless approach is taken to tracking, testing and treatment.

UNTHSC President Scott Ransom

At the UNT Health Science Center, we are uniquely structured to bring such a bench-to-bedside attack against disease. Our expertise in public health, interdisciplinary scientific research and clinical care education and delivery gives us the singular ability to translate public health information and basic research into new models of provider training and care delivery. Our size gives us the nimbleness to collaborate expeditiously.

First, researchers, caregivers and policy makers must be armed with critical information such as demographics, mortality and morbidity, and health care utilization in order to proactively map health issues. Cost-effective solutions will require creation of integrated databases for analyzing, trending and forecasting data. The Texas Center for Health Outcomes will provide our public health experts this all-important information repository to target the exact existence of serious socio-economic and ethnic health disparities, as well as the emergence of new diseases.

Second, we must use this new information to help fill in the gaps of our existing biomedical scientific knowledge and then directly apply this resulting research to our communities. The Texas Center for Translational Research will build on our research strengths in Alzheimer’s and aging, health disparities, diabetes, obesity, musculoskeletal medicine, cardiovascular disease, and infant mortality through new interdisciplinary and collaborative investigations and partnerships. As a result, for example, we hope to develop unique drug discoveries for therapeutic development and testing with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT).

Finally, we must be able to take the knowledge discovered in the first two centers and use them to build new models of provider training and care delivery. Utilizing the latest in information technology and simulation, the Texas Center for Primary and Rural Care will provide support to comprehensive medical training in Corpus Christi and Fort Worth. In addition, new models of care will improve access to quality care in rural and underserved communities throughout Texas.

All three centers working together will provide the continuous feedback necessary to determine if a solution in theory works in reality.