Presentation Abstract

Title —A ‘Black Paradox’ in Cardiovascular Health? A Search for Promoters of Health in the Face of Risk                      

Health disparities are a terrible and tragic reality, but the fact that they exist should surprise no one. They are a logical derivative of yawning social inequities established and perpetuated in various forms in the laws and customs of our society for four centuries.  Black-white disparities are in large measure a symptom of a deeper, persistent social disorder.

However, the outcomes for Blacks are not universally negative; in fact there is substantial heterogeneity in health and disease measures within the Black community. Research attention to the phenomenon of  health maintenance and resilience among Blacks in the face of risk is infrequent but may be hugely important to foster a more complete understanding of disparities; further, it may introduce novel priorities and approaches for their resolution. In addition to understanding risk factors, understanding active promoters of health---at the community, individual and even molecular (“precision medicine”) levels –is a potentially invaluable perspective for the future of health equity research. Community based research enhanced by mobile devices, wearables and applications (modified and even co-designed with community input) can give granular “in the wild” data which can deepen our understanding of risk and resilience factors in our communities and patients.

About Dr. Taylor

Herman A. Taylor is Endowed Professor and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Morehouse School of Medicine. He is an epidemiologist and cardiologist, with an interest and expertise in CVD disparities. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Taylor has been involved in the clinical practice of primary care, internal medicine, and invasive and preventive cardiology over the span of his career. In addition, he has developed a substantial research career, beginning with his early contributions to the literature on coronary disease treatment disparities, in which he showed under-utilization of invasive procedures, delay in treatment, and a higher frequency of misattribution of angina symptoms to non-cardiac etiologies among minority patients—factors contributing to poorer outcomes.

Between 1998 and 2014, Dr. Taylor was the inaugural Director of the Jackson Heart Study. In establishing this study, Dr. Taylor guided the development of remarkable collaborations among disparate scientists and institutions, the African American community of Jackson, Mississippi, and leading NIH Institutes. He, thereby, generated information on an understudied population, catapulting it into one of the world’s most significant repositories of information on CVD in a high-risk population and making it a hub of international scientific collaboration. Additionally, under his leadership, the study leveraged resources to enhance capacity and training opportunities for minority students, many of whom have entered the biomedical research and clinical medicine workforce with advanced understanding of key issues in health equity.

Dr. Taylor's recent innovative work on resilience explores cardiovascular health in the face of adverse social and biological conditions, an understudied aspect of minority health, and has attracted funding from the National Science Foundation and American Heart Association.

Dr. Taylor did not disclose any conflicts of interest for this workshop.